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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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ROBINSON CRUSOE. 



BOYS' HEROES 



/ 



BY 

EDWARD EVERETT HALE 



ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 



t he UBjuir] 

OF C ONGR ESI 
WASHINGTON 



Copyright, r886, 

by 

D. Lothrop & Company. 



~3 



CONTENTS. 



I. 


Hector .... 


Pagb. 

7 


II. 


HORATIUS COCLES 


26 


III. 


Alexander the Great 


40 


IV. 


Hannibal .... 


5 1 


V. 


King Arthur 


69 


VI. 


Richard the Lion Hearted 


82 


VII. 


Bayard .... 


95 


VIII. 


Robinson Crusoe 


in 


IX. 


Israel Putnam 


127 


X. 


General Lafayette . 


i37 


XI. 


Napoleon the First . 


l 5° 


XII. 


Ralph Allestree 


164 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 







Page. 


Robinson Crusoe 


Frontispiece 


Hector and Andromache. — From the Bas 




relief by Thorwaldsen . 




*5 


"Where stood the Dauntless Three" 




28 


1 "Alone Stood Brave Horatius " 




31 


Alexander the Great 




45 


/ King Arthur's Round Table 




70 


The Sword Excalibar 




. 76 


Bayard's Armor 




99 


The Young Bayard . 




103 


Bartholdi's Statue of Lafayette 




141 


Napoleon the First 




J 52 



BOYS' HEROES. 



HECTOR. 

BOYS are jealously exclusive in the choice of 
their heroes, and have not many. 
I asked some of my younger friends why Hector 
was a boy's hero, to receive these replies : 

" Oh, because Achilles was such a hog." An- 
other boy said, 

" Oh, you like the Trojans, you know, and you 
are sorry the Greeks beat them." 

I tried to find out whether Hector's gentlemanly 
traits, of which he has more than any hero of the 
Iliad, had anything to do with the preference of 
Hector to Achilles. Do boys like Hector the 
more because he was kind to Helen — because he 
7 



8 boys' heroes. 

was fond of his wife and his baby ? To these ques- 
tions I have found no satisfactory answers, and I 
throw them out for discussion among my young- 
friends. 

Hector had the advantages and the disadvan- 
tages of an oldest son. He was the oldest son of 
Priam and Hecuba. All along, apparently, he was 
befriended by Apollo. I suppose that is a short 
way of saying that he was handsome and graceful, 
learned his lessons quickly, sung well and danced 
well, and got along with the other boys without 
frequent rows. I suppose it also means that he 
had good health, which is the best thing a boy can 
have — that he liked to live in the open air, and 
that is the best taste a boy can have. One account 
says squarely that he was Apollo's son. But that 
is hardly any affair of ours. For our business in 
these little papers is chiefly with history. 

According to Homer, Priam had fifty sons, of 
whom Hecuba was mother of nineteen. Several 
of these sons appear in the story, and Alexander or 
Paris played the central part in the beginning of it. 
But I remember nothing which is said of their edu- 



HECTOR. 9 

cation, excepting Hector's own statement that he 
was 

— bred to martial pains. 

Achilles was specially put under Chiron's care, as 
if Chiron were a sort of tutor. 

Achilles was also " tutored " by Phoenix, to use 
a very bad word, which is, however, a conven- 
ient one. But of Hector's tutors I remember 
nothing — and schools, I think, were not then 
invented. Somebody taught him to tell the truth 
and to fight the enemies of his country. That is 
the heart of all education, as you will learn when 
you come to read Amyas Leigh. I think he knew 
how to read, but of this I am not certain. I doubt 
if he could spell. But he could run well — only 
too well. He could swim, I think. He could har- 
ness and drive horses. He could play with a baby. 
He could be good to his wife. Here are all the es- 
sentials gained in a good education. As to the 
question which some readers will think most im- 
portant — whether he played ball — there can be no 
doubt that he did. They all played ball, and played 



to Buys heroes. 

it very well. You will see that Hector, even in the 
royal family, could have selected a good nine from 
his own brothers, and another nine to play against, 
and an umpire. And still there could have been a 
good company of brothers and sisters to look on. 

When the Greeks landed, it was known by an 
oracle that he who landed first would be killed. 
Laodamia wrote to her husband Protesilaus, 

Be thine the thousandth of a thousand ships. 

But Protesilaus either did not receive the letter or 
disregarded it. He was the first Greek to spring 
ashore, and Hector was ready and killed him. 
So Hector struck the first blow. 

You will find this story in " Lucian's Dialogues 
of the Dead," an amusing book, in which are a 
good many of the later traditions which had grown 
up about the older Greek mythology. It is not in 
the Iliad. In the Iliad, Hector appears first where 
he reproaches Paris, his brother, for running away 
from Menelaus. Remember that it is the wife of 
Menelaus whom Paris has stolen ; and that thus 
the whole war began : 



HECTOR. 1 1 

As godlike Hector sees the prince retreat 

He thus upbraids him with a generous heat; 

"Unhappy Paris! but to women brave! 

So fairly f orm'd, and only to deceive ! 

Oh,hadst thou died when first thou saw'st the light, 

Or died at least before thy nuptial rite ! 

A better fate than vainly thus to boast, 

And fly, the scandal of thy Trojan host. 

Gods ! how the scornful Greeks exult to see 

Their fears of danger undeceived in thee ! " 

Hector then challenged Menelaus himself. Here 
is the result : 

Stung to the heart the generous Hector hears, 
But just reproof with decent silence bears. 
From his proud car the prince impetuous springs, 
On earth he leaps ; his brazen armour rings. 
Two shining spears are brandish'd in his hands ; 
Thus arm'd, he animates his drooping bands, 
Revives their ardor, turns their steps from flight 
And wakes anew the dying flames of fight. 
They turn, they stand ; the Greeks their fury dare, 
Condense their powers and wait the growing war. 

Where Hector march'd, the god of battles shined. 
Now storm'd before him, and now raged behind. 



12 boys' heroes. 

Amazed no less the great Tydides stands : 
He stay'd, and turning thus address'd his bands : 
" No wonder, Greeks : that all to Hector yield ; 
Secure of favouring gods, he takes the field; 
His strokes they second, and avert our spears ; 
Behold where Mars in mortal arms appears ! 
Retire then, warriors, but sedate and slow ; 
Retire, but with your faces to the foe. 
Trust not too much your unavailing might ; 
Tis not with Troy, but with the gods ye fight." 

There follows a general battle. Even Ares, the 
god of war, is wounded, as he fights on the Trojan 
side. Hector goes back to the city to ask his mother 
to pray to their fast friend, Athene, for relief. It 
is then he has the interview with his wife Andro- 
mache, when the little boy is afraid of the helmet. 

Thus having spoke, th' illustrious son of Troy 
Stretched his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. 
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, 
Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest. 
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled 
And Hector hastened to relieve his child — 
The glittering terrors from his brow unbound, 
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground; 



HECTOR. 13 

Then kissed the child, and, lifting high in air, 
Thus to the gods preferred a father's prayer : 
" O, Thou ! whose glory fills the ethereal throne, 
And all ye deathless powers, protect my son. 
Grant him like me to purchase just renown, 
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown; 
Against his country's foes the war to wage 
And rise the Hector of a future age. 
So, when triumphant from successful toils, 
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils, 
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim 
And say, this chief transcends his father's fame 
While pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy, 
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy." 

In the battle which follows Hector is wounded, but 
not so severely wounded but that he soon appears 
again and again, and when he appears, the Greeks 
are apt to be worsted. Then Teucer attacks him, 
after having killed eight Trojans in succession by 
successful arrow-shots. 

" He spoke, and sent another arrow from the 
string, aimed at Hector, whom he hoped to strike. 
But it missed him, and struck in the heart Gor- 
gythion, a brave son of Priam, whose mother was 



14 BOYS HEROES. 

Castianira, beautiful as a goddess, who had been 
brought as a slave from Aesyma. And as a poppy 
in a garden, heavy with its fruit, and supple with 
the moisture of spring, bends its head upon one 
side, so bent his heavy head upon one side. And 
Teucer sent another arrow from the string, aimed 
at Hector whom he hoped to strike. But even 
then it missed him, for Apollo warded it off, and it 
struck Archeptolemus, the brave charioteer of Hec- 
tor, as he was rushing into the fight — it struck him 
in the heart. He fell from the chariot, and his 
horses sprung backward and all his spirit and his 
strength were gone. And Hector mourned for his 
charioteer with bitter grief." 

I have translated this, almost literally, in the 
hope that some boy or girl may send to me a ver- 
sion in poetry, half as good as Mr. Sotheby's or a 
quarter as good as Mr. Pope's. Perhaps a hun- 
dred of my readers will try. 

You can see here how Hector " turned the scale 
when he appeared." 

As when two scales are charged with doubtful loads, 
From side to side the trembling balance nods 



HECTOR. 17 

(While some laborious matron, just and poor, 

With nice exactness weighs her wooly store), 

Till, poised aloft, the resting beam suspends 

Each equal weight ; nor this, nor that descends : 

So stood the war, till Hector's matchless might 

With fates prevailing, turn'd the scale of fight. 

Fierce as a whirlwind up the wall he flies, 

And fires his host with loud repeated cries : 

Advance, ye Trojans i lend your valiant hands, 

Haste to the fleet, and toss the blazing brands. 

They hear, they run ; and, gathering at his call, 

Raise scaling engines, and ascend the wall : 

Around the works a wood of glittering spears 

Shoots up, and all the rising host appears. 

A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved to throw, 

Pointed above, and rough and gross below : 

Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise, 

Such men as live in our degenerate days. 

Yet this, as easy as a swain would bear 

The snowy fleece, he toss'd, and shook in air : 

For Jove upheld, and lightened of its load 

The unwieldy rock, the labour of a god. 

Thus arm'd, before the folded gates he came, 

Of massy substance, and stupendous frame ; 

With iron bars and brazen hinges strong, 

On lofty beams of solid timber hung : 



18 boys' heroes. 

Then, thundering through the planks with forceful sway, 

Drives the sharp rock ; the solid beams give way, 

The folds are shatter'd ; from the crackling door 

Leap the resounding bars, the flying hinges roar. 

Now rushing in, the furious chief appears, 

Gloomy as night ! and shakes two shining spears : 

A dreadful gleam from his bright armour came, 

And from his eyeballs flashed a living flame. 

He moves a god, resistless in his course, 

And seems a match for more than mortal force. 

Then pouring after, through the gaping space : 

A tide of Trojans flows, and fills the place, 

The Greeks behold, they tremble, and they fly; 

The shore is heaped with dead and tumult fills the sky. 

Hector shows himself a fearless leader, and he 
has the great gift of encouraging his men. Once 
and again they drive the Grecians — once even to 
their ships — and Hector with his torch sets fire to 
them. 

Meanwhile Achilles is sulking in his tents. But 
he permits Patroclus to go out against the Greeks 
in his armour. Here and now it must be con- 
fessed Hector is afraid, and he runs away. This 
is what I meant when, in my little joke, I said he 



HECTOR. 19 

learned too well how to run. But Apollo encour- 
aged him, he returned to the fight and killed Pa- 
troclus. Thus he became the possessor of Achilles' 
armor. Achilles asked for the body of Patroclus, 
and Hector refused to surrender it. Polydamas 
proposes that he should retire into the city. And, 
for one, knowing the result, I always wished he had 
done so, from an eager desire to know how, in that 
case, the Iliad would have ended. But Hector re- 
fused. Apollo bade him decline a contest with 
Achilles — and when Achilles in his new armor 
came on the field to avenge Patroclus, Priam and 
Hecuba both implored their son to avoid him, and 
to retreat. But Hector would not obey. He 
awaited the Greek hero. 

When, however, he saw him, in the terrors of the 
Vulcan-made armor, his courage failed him. Then 
was it that he fled three times round the walls of 
Troy. 

As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise, 
Struck by some god he fears, recedes, and flies. 
He leaves the gates, he leaves the walls behind; 
Achilles follows like the winged wind, 



20 BOYS HEROES. 

the rapid chase they held 

One urged by fury, one by fear impelled, 

Swift was the course ; no vulgar prize they play, 
No vulgar victim must reward the day, 
(Such as in races crown the speedy strife :) 
The prize contended was great Hector's life. 

Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly. 
The gazing gods lean forward from the sky ; 
To whom, while eager on the chase they look 
The'sire of mortals and immortals spoke. 

Every boy is indignant as he reads these stories 
that the heroes on each side are so heavily " handi- 
capped," that is, that just in the crisis of things one 
or two gods or goddesses, no better than men or 
women, interfere to upset the result which might 
have been. In this particular issue Zeus and 
Athene determine that Hector must fall, and Ath- 
ene even assumes the form of Deiphobus to urge 
him to make a stand, which he does and dies. 

"Tis so — heaven wills it, and my hour is nigh! 
I deem'd Deiphobus had heard my call, 
But he secure lies guarded in the wall. 



HECTOR. 2 1 

A god deceived me ; Pallas, 'twas thy deed, 

Death and black fate approach ! 'tis I must bleed. 

No refuge now, no succour from above, 

Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove, 

Propitious once, and kind ! Then welcome fate 1 

Tis true I perish, yet I perish great : 

Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire, 

Let future ages hear it and admire ! " 

Fierce at his word his weighty sword he drew, 

And, all collected, on Achilles flew. 



When all the starry train emblaze the sphere 
So shone the point of great Achilles' spear. 
In his right hand he waves the weapon round, 
Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound; 
But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore, 
Securely cased the warrior's body o'er. 
One space at length he spies, to let in fate, 
Where 'twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate 
Gave entrance : through that penetrable part 
Furious he drove the well-directed dart : 

Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies, 

While thus triumphing stern Achilles cries : 

" At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain, 

Who feared no vengeance for Patroclus slain : 

Then, prince ! you should have fear'd, what now you feel. 



2 2 BOYS HEROES. 

Achilles absent, was Achilles still ; 
Yet a short space the great avenger staid, 
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. 
Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn'd 
Forever honor'd and forever mourn'd ! " 

I suppose that our sympathy for Hector comes 
mostly from our feeling that he is quite over- 
weighted. He is almost the only thorough fighter 
on the Trojan side. The Greeks play out such 
pieces as Agamemnon, Diomedes, the two Ajaxes, 
Ulysses and Achilles himself, and the poor Tro- 
jans can only offer this one Hector with any pre- 
tence that he equals them. Now we always take 
the side of a person so over-matched. Then we 
like him because he does think of other things 
than blood and carnage. He can kiss his wife and 
play with his baby. And we like him because 
Achilles treated him so badly — or, as my young 
friend said, " because Achilles was such a hog ! " 

High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, 
Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands ; 
And thus aloud, while all the host attends ; 
Princes and leaders ! countrymen and friends ! 



HECTOR. 23 

Is not Troy fallen already ? Haste, ye powers I 
See if already their deserted towers 
Are left unmanned ; or if they yet retain 
The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain. 
Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring, 
The corpse of Hector, and your paeans sing. 
Be this the song, slow-moving toward the shore, 
" Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more." 
Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred 
( Unworthy of himself, and of the dead ) ; 
The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound 
With thongs inserted through the double wound ; 
These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain, 
His graceful head was trail'd along the plain. 
Proud on his car the insulting victor stood, 
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood. 
He smites the steeds ; the rapid chariot flies ; 
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise. 
Now lost is all that formidable air; 
The face divine, and long-descending hair, 
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand; 
Deform'd, dishonor'd, in his native land, 
Given to the rage of an insulting throng, 
And, in his parent's sight, now dragg'd along ! 

Here is Priam's prayer as he begged Achilles to 
surrender the body. 



24 boys' heroes. 

Think, O Achilles, semblance of the gods, 

On thine own father, full of days like me, 

And trembling on the gloomy verge of life. 

Some neighbour chief, it may be, even now 

Oppresses him, and there is none at hand, 

No friend to succor him in his distress. 

Yet, doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives 

He still rejoices, hoping day by day, 

That one day he shall see the face again 

Of his own son, from distant Troy returned. 

But me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons, 

So late the flower of Ilium, are all slain. 

When Greece came hither, I had fifty sons ; 

But fiery Mars hath thinned them. — One I had, 

One, more than all my sons, the strength of Troy, 

Whom standing for his country, thou hast slain — 

Hector. His body to redeem I come 

Into Achaia's fleet, bringing myself, 

Ransom inestimable to thy tent. 

Rev'rence the gods, Achilles ! recollect 

Thy father ; for his sake compassion show 

To me more pitiable still, who draw 

Home to my lips ( humiliation yet 

Unseen on earth,) his hand who slew my son ! 

How sweetly Helen mourned him. Of all the 
heroes he was the one who had been good to her. 



HECTOR. 25 

Oh Hector ! thou wert rooted in my heart ; 
No brother there had half so large a part. 
Not less than twenty years are now passed o'er, 
Since first I landed on the Trojan shore, 
Since Paris lured me from my home away. 
( Would I had died before that fatal day ! ) 
i^t it was ne'er my fate from thee to find 
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind. 
When others cursed the authoress of their woe, 
Thy pity checked my sorrows in their flow: 
If by my sisters or the queen reviled, 
(For the good king, like thee, was ever mild) 
Thy kindness still has all my grief beguil'd. 
For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee, 
Nor hope, nor solace now remains to me ; 
Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone. 



II. 



HORATIUS COCLES. 




HORATIUS COCLES 
was a great favorite 
among the Roman people 
from a very early time. The 
stories about him varied 
more or less, as may well 
happen when stories are 
told from father to son gen- 
erations before they are 

written down. But, in one 
26 



HORATIUS COCLES. 27 

form or another, every historian of early Rome 
tells the tale. 

The historian Niebuhr suggested that the stories 
we have of early Roman history must have been, 
at one time or another, transmitted in the form of 
ballads. And, with a great deal of ingenuity, and 
a great deal of spirit, Mr. Macaulay reproduced 
some of these supposed ballads from the history. 
These he called Lays of Ancient Rome, and they 
have awakened, for this generation, an interest 
wholly new in the stories. Mr. Macaulay himself, 
indeed, is more likely to be remembered, two hun- 
dred years hence, on their account, than for any- 
thing else which he has written. 

So is it that almost every schoolboy who will read 
this article, has read, and perhaps has told from 
the platform on "Declamation Day," that 

Then out spake brave Horatius 

The Captain of the Gate, 
u To every man upon this earth 

Death cometh, soon or late. 
And how can man die better 

Than facing dreadful odds 



28 boys' heroes. 

For the ashes of his fathers, 
And the temples of his Gods ! " 

It would be rather an interesting thing to com- 
pare the different stories about the three who held 




"where stood the dauntless three." 



the bridge, as they were told by the different his- 
torians of repute. Any boy or girl who lives where 
there is a good public library can do this, easily 
enough, by looking out the article " Horatius 
Codes " in Smith's larger Dictionary of Biography, 
and then finding the authorities cited there. Some 
of them have been translated into English, and for 



HORATIUS COCLES. 29 

the rest, the boys who are studying Latin could 
hammer out the meaning without much difficulty. 
Indeed, that would not be a bad subject to give to 
a bright class at school for a " composition " to 
show the difference between the various narratives 
of " The Battle at the Bridge." 

Here is the story as Plutarch tells it : 

Porsenna, making a sharp assault, obliged the defenders 
to retire to Rome. In their entrance they had almost ad- 
mitted their enemy into the city with them. But Publicola, 
by sallying out at the gate, prevented them. He joined bat- 
tle by the side of Tiber — and opposed the enemy as they 
pressed on with great multitudes — but at last he sank under 
desperate wounds and was carried out of the fight. The 
same fortune befell Lucretius, so that the Romans in dismay 
retreated into the city for safety, and Rome was in great haz- 
ard of being taken, for the enemy forced their way upon the 
wooden bridge over Tiber. But Horatius Codes, seconded 
by Herminius and Lartius, who were two of the first men of 
Rome, made head against them. Horatius had the name of 
Codes, from the loss of one of his eyes in the wars — or, as 
others write, from the depression in his nose — which left 
nothing in the middle to separate the two eyes — and thus 
made both his eyes to appear as one : — hence, meaning to say 
Cyclops, by a mispronunciation they called him Codes. 



30 BOYS HEROES. 

This Codes kept the bridge, and held back the enemy till 
his own party broke it down behind, and then with his armour 
dropped into the river, and swam to the hither side, with a 
wound in his hip from a Tuscan spear* 

Publicola, admiring his courage, proposed at once that 
the Romans should every one make him a present of a day's 
provisions, and afterwards give him as much land as he 
could plough around in one day, and besides, erected a brazen 
statue to his honor in the temple of Vulcan, as a requittal 
for the lameness caused by his wound. 

This statue, it would appear, remained visible to 
a late period in Roman history. 

All this happened when the republic was newly 
formed, Publicola being, indeed, one of the first two 
consuls. The name of Horatius is enough to show 
that Codes was one of the great Horatian family, 
which appears very early in history and lasted till 
after the Empire began. The poet Horace was con- 
nected with it in some way ; and every boy named 
" Horace " may look to it as having given him his 
name. So we know that Horatius Codes was, in 
a fashion, a relation of the three Horatii. 



* This is one of Plutarch's frequent absurdities. Cyclops is a Greek 
word, and there was no reason why the Romans should speak Greek. 




ALONE STOOD BRAVE HORATIUS. 



HORATIUS COCLES. S3 

Now it may have been that the Horatian fam- 
ily, or gens, as it is the rather affected fashion to 
call it now, was specially prolific of brave men, 
ready to die for their country. Or it may be, that, 
some fifty or a hundred years after, there was some 
bard among the retainers of the family or in the 
family itself, who was specially good in composing 
and singing the lays of old times. In that case 
there would be more Lays of the Horatian family 
than of any other, and their lays would have lasted 
longer. 

Mr. Macaulay, in his ballad, clings very closely 
to this story. He gives to it the confirmation of 
the statue. 

And, in all such things, a visible statue is a great 
help to the man who sings the song. 

And they made a molten image 

And set it up on high, 
And there it stands until this day 

To witness if I lie. 
It stands in the Comitium, 

Plain for all folk to see, 
Horatius in his harness 

Halting upon one knee. 



34 boy's heroes. 

And underneath is written 

In letters all of gold, 
How valiantly he kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 

The poet Horace himself says that " brave men 
lived before Agamemnon ; " and he says that the 
reason why no one remembered them was that 
they had no Homer to write about them. 

Swords flashed and lances flew, armor rung 
Before Atrides fought or Homer sung. 

This is a hint to people who would build up the 
reputation of their families, that they will do well 
not to spend so much money on perishable mar- 
ble, and to do more to encourage the young poets 
of the household. 

Horatius Codes is the hero who represents men 
who have had to stand alone for their country. And 
he is not simply a selected champion for his country, 
as David is when he kills Goliath, or as Hector is 
when he fights Achilles before the walls of Troy. 
As the story is told, the whole fate of his country 
" pivots " upon him. Now this is often the case 



HORATIUS COCLES. 35 

when people do not know that it is so. The wise 
man saves the city, and no one thanks him for sav- 
ing it. But the instances are few in history where 
in a picturesque and distinct way one man so stands 
out that you see that his success is the success of 
his country and that his fall is his country's fall. 

We remember Arnold von Winkelried as such a 
man, but the crisis is less than in Horatius' success. 
Jane Dare, the Maid of Orleans, may be spoken 
of in that way. While she succeeded, France suc- 
ceeded. When she failed, France failed. But here 
is rather an instance where the country needed a 
leader and found one. In the case of Horatius it 
is not a leader who was needed ; Publicola was a 
sufficient leader. Horatius had a great opportunity 
and he was suffcient for it. When John Hampden 
took the whole shock of the anger and harm of the 
king, he was such a man. But Hampden was only 
one of many who in turn would have taken the 
same stand. Hampden's case was the first one on 
trial, and with the sturdy pluck which distinguishes 
Englishmen, he stood the assault, although it were 
led by his king. In American history Mr. Joshua 



36 boys' heroes. 

Giddings is somewhat such a man. He represented 
the People at a time when the lower House of Con- 
gress did not want to hear the People. Then the 
House would turn him out. The People would 
elect him again. The House would turn him out 
again. The time came when the People again con- 
trolled the House, and to that time I suppose he 
had looked forward. 

But as I said before, it is only because we do not 
see very deeply into the causes of things that we 
see but few such picturesque instances and pre- 
serve the names of but few of such heroes. The 
proverb says that " for want of a nail the shoe was 
lost, and for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and 
for want of a horse the rider was lost, and for want 
of a rider the army was lost, and for want of an 
army the crown was lost, and all for the want of a 
two-penny nail." But that seems to me but a bleak 
way of telling history. 

I like to begin at the other end, and to work for- 
ward and upward. I would tell the story thus : 

There was a boy whom we will name Luke Var- 
num. He was fifteen years old, and he_was lame of 



HORATIUS COCLES. 37 

his left foot. So when every other boy in Number 
Five, and every man, old and young, shouldered 
his firelock and inarched off to join General Stark, 
and go and fight the Hessians at Bennington, Luke 
was left at home. He limped out and held the 
stirrup for Lieutenant Chittinden to mount, and 
then he had to stay at home with the babies and 
the women. 

The men had been gone an hour and a half when 
three men galloped up on horseback. And Luke 
went down to the rails to see who they were. " Is 
there nobody here ? " said one of them. 

" Yes," said Luke, " I am here." 

" I see that," said the first man, laughing. " What 
I mean is, is there nobody here can set a shoe ? " 

" I think I can," said Luke. " I often tend fire 
for Jonas. I can blow the bellows, and I can hold 
the horse's foot. Anyway, I will start up the 
fire." 

So Luke went into the forge and took down the 
tinder-box and struck a light. He built the fire, 
and hunted up half a dozen nails which Jonas had 
left unintentionally, and he had even made two 



38 boys' heroes. 

more when a fourth horseman came slowly down 
on a walk. 

" What luck," said he, " to find a forge with the 
fire lighted ! " 

" We found one," said Marvin, " with a boy who 
knew how to light it." And the other speaker flung 
himself off the horse meanwhile. 

And Luke pared the hoof of the dainty creature, 
and measured the shoe, which was too big for her. 
He heated it white, and bent it closer, to the proper 
size. "It is a poor fit," he said, "but it will do." 

" It will do very well," said her rider. " But she 
is very tender-footed, and I do not dare trust her 
five miles unshod." 

And for pride's sake, the two first nails Luke 
drove were those he had made himself. And when 
the shoe was fast, he said : " Tell Jonas that I het 
up the forge — and put on the shoe." 

"We will tell him," said the Colonel, laughing, 
and he rode on. But one of the other horsemen 
tarried a minute, and said, " Boy, no ten men who 
left you to-day have served your country as you 
have. It is Colonel Warner." 



HORATIUS COCLES. 39 

When I read in the big books of history how 
Colonel Warner led up his regiment just in time to 
save the day at Bennington, I am apt to think of 
Luke Varnum. 

When I read that that day decided the battle of 
Saratoga, and that Saratoga determined that Amer- 
ica should be independent, I think of Luke Varnum. 

When I go to see monuments erected in mem- 
ory of Colonel Warner, and General Stark, and 
even poor old Burgoyne, I think of Luke Varnum 
and others like him. 

And then sometimes I wonder whether every 
man and boy of us who bravely and truly does the 
very best thing he knows how to do, does not have 
the future of the world resting on him. If it be so 
there are, all unknown in the world, a good many 
persons like Horatius Codes. 



III. 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



T) OYS and girls are glad to see young people 
-*— " come forward well, when they read history. 
There are four or five people in the history of the 
world, who have set it forward in young life, and 
have shown that much may be entrusted to young 
life which is generally left to persons far advanced. 
Alexander the Great died when he was thirty-two ; 
but he had wholly changed the history of the world 
before he died. Raphael died when he was thirty- 
six ; Lord Byron died when he was thirty-six. 

When I was a boy, every boy in college knew 
that William Pitt was in Parliament when he was 
twenty-one, was Chancellor of the Exchequer when 
twenty-two, and that he was Prime Minister of 
England before he was twenty-four years old. I 
remember a college poem of mine, written when I 

40 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 41 

was only seventeen, in which were the following 

lines : 

Will youthful ardor youth's success permit ? 
Search through all history, find one only Pitt. 

The lines were certainly unfortunate. For the 
most interesting thing about this William Pitt is 
that he was son of the other William Pitt — 
that both father and son were prime ministers — 
the elder being the greatest minister England ever 
had. But what I meant, in the couplet, was that 
the younger was the only prime minister Eng- 
land had had so young. And this was true. 
There have been plenty of "royal favorites" as 
young, but they were not, strictly, ministers. I 
have lived long enough also, to know that it is a 
great pity for the world that there was more than 
one Pitt, and that this particular Pitt ever was 
prime minister. The world would be much better 
off to-day, I think, had he spent his life in making 
heads to pins, or in spinning cotton, as I believe 
he should have done on the crack theory of Politi- 
cal Economy. 

To go back to Alexander, he and Raphael and 



42 BOYS HEROES. 

Byron will always be favorites among young people. 
Young people feel that it would be a nice thing if 
the world were entrusted more to them. I remem- 
ber that, a few years ago, some spirited boys en- 
gaged Faneuil Hall, in Boston, for a meeting to 
make a protest against the statute which prohibits 
them from voting in Massachusetts — where they 
are permitted to hurrah and carry torches. 

When Alexander came to the front, this fascina- 
ting theory of youth was put to a critical test — 
and it succeeded wonderfully well. For so long as 
Alexander was very young, he succeeded. And 
he had passed thirty, that is, he had entered on 
what young people call middle life, before his 
great failure. 

Alexander's life illustrates another thing — the 
good of having a first-rate father and mother, and 
the good of first-rate education. " He inherited 
from Philip," says Dr. Smith, "his cool foresight 
and practical wisdom, and from Olympias his 
mother, her ardent enthusiasm." These are ex- 
cellent things to inherit. Ardent enthusiasm and 
cool foresight are a combination as good as one 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 43 

could ask, for a start on successful life. Dr. Smith 
adds, alas, that he inherited " ungovernable pas- 
sions from Olympias, also." Some of us think 
that no passions are ungovernable. But it was 
the misfortune of poor Alexander that he did not 
know that Spirit, by whose alliance only, such 
passions are to be governed. 

His mother was of the royal family of Epirus, 
in the northern part of what is now the little 
modern kingdom of Greece. Alexander was fond 
of claiming descent, through her, from Achilles. 
I do not see any reason for supposing that he was 
not right in this claim. What is certain is that 
her great-grandfather was King of Epirus ; and the 
traditions of Achilles say that his son Pyrrhus, or 
Neoptolemus, was King of Epirus. Between Pyr- 
rhus and Olympias would come six or seven hun- 
dred years — perhaps twenty generations. But 
there is no reason why the genealogy of the kings 
of that country should not be kept as well for those 
generations as the genealogies were kept for the 
twenty generations between Egbert King of Eng- 
land and the Wars of the Roses. Alexander cer- 



44 BOY S HEROES. 

tainly had a better chance to know than you and 
I have. And I offer this as a good rule in form- 
ing an opinion on any point of history — that sen- 
sible men, at or near the time of action, had many 
opportunities for knowing the truth which people 
cannot have one thousand years, or two thousand 
or more years away. This rule will seem common- 
place, but it is, in truth, very generally scorned. 

If I had to write the life of Alexander, in one 
hundred words, I should say that he had a good 
education, and profited by it. When he was only 
sixteen, Philip, his father, left him in charge of 
Macedonia while he was at war. Four years after, 
Philip died, leaving Alexander king. He was sur- 
rounded by enemies. But he marched North, and 
conquered the barbarians, South, and conquered 
the Greeks and then, with the aid of all* of them 
but the Lacedaemonians, he overran Asia Minor, 
Syria and Egypt and conquered Persia, He after- 
wards marched into India, but did not remain there. 
He made Babylon his capital and died there at 
the age of thirty-two. 

But when I asked my young friend, Tom Hali- 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



45 



day, to write a life of Alexander, after he had been 
reading Plutarch for an hour, Tom produced this 
memoir, and I found he had used up his hundred 




ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

words long before the young man came to his 
throne. 

"There came a man called Philanicus who had 
a beautiful white horse, which he offered for thir- 
teen talents. But when they tried him, he proved 
to be so vicious that no one dared to ride him. 



46 boys' heroes. 

Then Alexander spoke up, and said that it was a 
great shame that they should lose such a beautiful 
horse for want of a man to ride him. The people 
all laughed at him, when he said that he could 
manage him better than any of them, and they told 
him he could try. 

" Alexander walked up to him, and turned his 
head towards the sun, for he had observed that it 
was his own shadow that he was afraid of. He 
then threw off his upper garments and gave a 
spring into the saddle and started him at full 
speed." 

To tell you the truth, I think Tom's method of 
writing history more entertaining than mine. And 
the reason why Plutarch's Lives have been read by 
almost all people who could read, now for fifteen 
hundred and more years since they were written, is 
that they are all crowded full of just such stories 
of separate incidents, well wrought out in detail. 
They do not undertake to give a philosophical 
view of the man's life, so much as to give some 
very vivid pictures of separate incidents in it. One 
of Plutarch's Lives is thus a sort of picture gallery, 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 47 

with several pictures of curious or important events. 
But a regularly-built biography of the modern fash- 
ion is more like a map, on which the various things 
are put down in proper relation to each other. It 
is however, all the same, by no means so attractive 
at the first sight, and there is a certain reality given 
a picture to which no map can pretend. 

Philip, the father of Alexander, had made such 
preparation as he could for the invasion of Asia. 
The Greeks had never forgotten the invasions by 
Darius and Xerxes. There was a permanent quar- 
rel, indeed, between Greece and Persia. And you 
must remember that Persia held Asia Minor, and 
drew tribute even from the Greek cities on its 
Western coast. So that when Alexander crossed 
the Bosphorus to the field of Troy, he was in the 
same old contest with which in the Iliad, Greek 
history and poetry began — the history in which 
our friend Hector played his part so well. First, 
Paris crosses to Greece, and steals Helen. Then 
Greece confederates against Troy, crosses to Asia 
and destroys Troy. Then, after five or six cen- 
turies, in which there have been many raids, back- 



48 boys' heroes. 

wards and forwards, Darius makes the greatest 
raid of all, comes down upon the Greeks, and is 
defeated at Marathon. Ten years after, Xerxes 
tries again and is defeated at Salamis. The next 
year, the great Persian fleet is destroyed at Mycale. 
The march of the ten thousand, when the younger 
Cyrus attempts to take possession of the Persian 
throne, is a Greek effort to retaliate — so far as the 
ten thousand are concerned. This was seventy- 
nine years after Salamis ; and sixty-seven years after 
this, Alexander pays off the Greek debt entirely, 
or begins to. He crosses into Asia in the year 
334 before Christ, and thirteen years after, at the 
battle of Arbela, takes possession of the Persian 
Empire. These thirteen years distinctly changed 
the history of the world. 

I remember that I used to wonder why when he 
had well-conquered Babylon, he never went home 
to Macedonia. The answer is, that he and his men 
were too much fascinated by Eastern luxury. The 
tide of Empire may take its way Westward, but the 
longings for luxury always turn Eastward. You 
have heard Mr. Appleton's joke, that good Ameri- 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 49 

cans go to Paris when they die. You have noticed 
perhaps, that rich Californians go to New York 
and Paris and Rome to spend their money. So 
when Mark Antony took possession of Alexandria, 
Alexandria took possession of him. And, in just 
this way, when Alexander and his rough Greeks 
found themselves in the luxuries of Babylon, they 
were just like these unfortunate Americans, who 
will read these lines in the comforts and luxuries of 
Italy or Germany or France, and shudder when 
they find that I or any other cynic think they would 
be much better off at home. 

When I was a schoolboy, there was a dialogue in 
the schoolbooks, in which Alexander was repre- 
sented as a "Thracian robber." The boys stood 
in attitudes represented in a picture, and the dia- 
logue ended by Alexander's saying penitently, " Al- 
exander a robber? let me reflect." The piece was 
the outgrowth of a sort of sentimental philosophy 
which was in vogue a hundred years ago, and it will 
certainly not stand any fair criticism. Wherever 
Alexander went, he left something better than he 
found. He admitted Egypt into the circulation of 



5<d boys' heroes. 

the Mediterranean System by building Alexandria. 
He introduced India to the knowledge of the Wes- 
tern World. He made easy and systematic the com- 
munications between Europe and Asia. Thought- 
ful persons are used to say that in the time of our 
Saviour, Palestine was the very centre of the Old 
World. It was so. It was the place from which the 
Infinite Revelation of Absolute Religion could most 
easily go out to the world. It was so, because 
Alexander had established his empire. If it were 
only that he made the Greek language the language 
of the civilization of those centuries — in that single 
change Alexander would have changed history. 

" The conquests of Alexander," says Mr. Samuel 
Eliot, " smoothed the way for the chariot wheels of 
the Gospel." 



IV. 



HANNIBAL. 



WHEN making a list of the heroes who in- 
terest intelligent boys, I consulted many 
friends, but we did not always agree. But I think 
they all said that Hannibal should be on the list, 
yet I think none of them said why. I believe he 
stands out in the memory of boys who have read 
more or less of Roman history, as none of the men 
do who were opposed to him ; though many of these 
were certainly great men, and though we know 
much more of them than we know of him. Fabius, 
Marcellus, Cornelius Scipio, for instance, are all of 
them men remarkable for what they were and what 
they did ; they fill important places in Roman his- 
tory ; their lives are fully and well written. But I 
do not think any one would name them on a list of 

boys' heroes. 

5i 



52 BOYS HEROES. 

I should account for this fondness for Hannibal, 
wherever it exists, chiefly by the fact that he beat 
the Romans so often, and kept them under so long. 
It is just as one likes Hector, because being on 
the weaker side he held his own so well against the 
Greeks who in the end were to crush him and his. 
Doctor Johnson says you cannot see two dogs fight- 
ing without sympathizing with one dog or the other. 
If this is true, I think right-minded people would 
generally sympathize with the weaker dog, suppos- 
ing that neither dog had forfeited sympathy. This 
is certain, that as schoolboys wade along through 
the rather dull history of the Roman republic, which, 
as taught them, is only a chronicle of five centuries 
of war, they tire of the steady story of brute suc- 
cess. It is like watching a pile-driver all day long, 
as it knocks the piles down into the mud. You 
would be glad to have one pile rebel and refuse to 
go down. So, when Brennus at the head of his 
Gauls, or Hannibal at the head of his Carthagini- 
ans, turns the tide of luck for a few years, you are 
much obliged to them if it were only that they bring- 
some variety into a tedious story. 



HANNIBAL. 53 

Then there is the pretty incident, where his 
father takes him as a little boy to the altar of his 
country, and makes him swear hostility to Rome. 
You and I, who are still boys, like to think that 
a boy can make up his mind, early in life, what he 
will do, and what he will be, that he can keep on 
the lines he proposed then, and come out triumph- 
antly, as for nearly thirty years at least after his vow 
Hannibal did. 

The little story is certainly true. And I suppose 
there were plenty of people in Carthage who held 
to a peace policy. I suppose they said that this 
hatred of the Romans was a very old-fashioned 
prejudice. I suppose they said that a new genera- 
tion of Romans had grown up, that they were ami- 
able Romans and good Romans, and that they 
spoke the Carthaginian language quite well, and 
that they liked to buy the Carthaginian figs and 
that, in short, they were very different Romans from 
the Romans whom Hannibal's father hated, and 
whom the little boy had sworn to overthrow. But 
Hannibal did not believe such people when he came 
to be a man. He had found out, somehow or other, 



54 BOYS HEROES. 

what is the only secret of success, namely, that only 
he who endures to the end shall be saved. 

He did not mean to have his nation put up with 
little aggressions or great aggressions. He did not 
mean to have Rome cut in on her colonies or inter- 
fere with her citizens in their trade. Up and down 
the Mediterranean he meant that the prestige of a 
Carthaginian citizen should be as good as that of a 
Roman citizen. And he would have gained this, if 
his people had stood by him. 

Some people will tell you that they failed be- 
cause theirs was a mercantile state, and their gov- 
ernment the government of merchants. It has been 
quite the fashion in England, for the last thirty 
years, for grumblers to say this, and to warn Eng- 
land that if her government is carried on in the in- 
terests of merchants, she will go to destruction as 
Carthage did. You will find England called the 
" modern Carthage " in satires and philippics. But 
I do not believe.it can be proved that Carthage 
failed because she was governed by merchants. On 
the other hand I think that the resources which 
Carthage had gained from mercantile adventure, 



HANNIBAL. 



55 



such as the gold and silver and tin and copper and 
iron which her seamen brought her from distant 
mines, with the skill of those seamen, and the vigor 
of her adventurers — I think that these gave her the 
means to carry on the struggle with Rome. Rome 
was not what we should call a mercantile power 
but a military power. That is, the first thought of 
each citizen was not trade but art. 

I have said the Carthaginians failed because they 
could not hold on. Their policy was vacillating. 
They deserted Hannibal who never deserted them. 
They could not endure to the end. If anybody 
wants to know why they finally went to pieces and 
disappeared in the long struggle with Rome, he 
must find out why they could not hold on. 

Well, the answer to that question is the same 
which you have when you ask the same question 
about the people of Jericho and Ai and all the 
Canaanites whom Joshua and his army found in 
Palestine, a thousand years before the time of Han- 
nibal. Those people were of the same race as the 
Carthaginians, who in fact emigrated from Tyre — 
some people think because the Israelites pressed 



56 boys' heroes. 

them in Southern Syria — and they sought new 
homes when they were crowded out. When Virgil 
calls Dido " Elissa," we ought to remember it was 
the same name as " Jezebel " who was Dido's rela- 
tive, and could have understood her if they could 
have met. Now the Canaanites could not hold on. 
They could not stand against the persistent pres- 
sure of the Israelites though their armor were as 
good, their tactics as good and though they fought 
for their homes. 

The weakness of Carthaginians and Canaanites 
is here. Such worship as they had — it would be a 
shame to call it religion — is a worship of things 
that they see. Instead of what we call morals, in- 
stead of right and wrong, their rulers, teachers, 
priests are seeking personal physical enjoyment. 
Nobody cares for the word "ought" or for the 
reality it expresses. Each man cares for what pleases 
his taste, his eye, his ear, or some of his senses. 
This is what is meant when it is said they worship 
Belial, and Moloch and Thammuz, while it is said 
that the conquering Hebrews worship an unknown 
God who has no name but " I AM." 



HANNIBAL. 57 

Now the Romans were not people who made a 
great deal of the external observances of worship, 
though they did not neglect them. But they did 
make a great deal of the word " Right," and of the 
idea in the word "Ought." When Regulus went 
back to Carthage to die, because he had said he 
would, he showed the Carthaginians something 
which they did not understand or comprehend. A 
Carthaginian would have lied under these circum- 
stances. The Carthaginian would have elected pres- 
ent comfort. The Roman had an idea of eternal 
truth. The Roman therefore in the days of the 
Republic could endure to the end. 

Hannibal was the son of Hamilcar Barca, a Car- 
thaginian chief who hated the Romans, and led the 
Carthaginian party which insisted on war with them. 
Hannibal was born in the very year when his father 
was appointed to the Carthaginian forces in Sicily. 
He did not succeed there, and the Carthaginians 
lost Sicily. Hamilcar went to Spain afterwards as 
the Carthaginian commander there. He took the 
boy Hannibal with him, though he was but nine 
years old. And it was then that he made him 



58 boys' heroes. 

swear eternal hatred to the Romans at the altar in 
Carthage. Hannibal never forgot this. He told 
the story of it to Antiochus, not long before his own 
death. Here is his own account of it : 

When I was a little boy not more than nine years old, my 
father offered sacrifices to Jupiter the Best and Greatest, on 
his departure from Carthage as general in Spain. While he 
was conducting the sacrifice, he asked me if I would like to 
go to the camp with him. I said I would gladly, and began 
to beg him not to hesitate to take me. He replied, " I will 
do it if you will make the promise I demand." He took me 
at once to the altar, at which he had offered his sacrifice, he 
bade me take hold of it, having sent the others away, and 
bade me swear that I would never be in friendship with the 
Romans. 

To this boy's vow he was always true. He could 
not have had a better school for war than was 
Spain, nor a better teacher than his father. The 
Carthaginians were establishing their colonies in 
the southern part of Spain, the Romans were 
strengthening their allies in the northern part. The 
river Ebro, which they called Iberus, had been 
agreed upon as a dividing line between the two em- 



HANNIBAL. 59 

pires. The Spanish tribes were by no means easy 
under their foreign rulers, and were constantly re- 
belling. Hannibal loved the open air, and he loved 
war. He was indifferent to personal luxury. He 
did not sleep because it was night, but because his 
work was done. He did not rise from bed because 
it was morning, but because he had something to 
do. So they say he was indifferent.to day or night. 
His dress was always simple, but his arms and his 
horses were always of the best. When he was so 
young as to be under command, he was always a 
favorite with his superiors, and then and afterwards 
he was always a favorite with his army. It seems 
to have been taken for granted from the beginning 
that he was to be a great commander. He com- 
manded the Carthaginian cavalry when he was 
eighteen years old, and took command of the whole 
army on his father's death, when he was hardly 
twenty-five or twenty-six. When he took his army 
across the Alps, he was hardly older than Napoleon 
was when he did the same thing twenty centuries 
after. 

So soon as he had an army at his command he 



6o boys' heroes. 

pounced on Saguntum, a city in alliance with the 
Romans. Saguntum had been founded by Greek 
colonists who came from Zacynthus, from which it 
derives its name. There is a Spanish village at the 
place now called Murviedro, which word is the re- 
mainder of the Latin words Muri veteres, " the old 
walls." After a most obstinate defence, Saguntum 
was totally destroyed and Hannibal immediately 
proceeded to march against Rome. 

He propitiated the tribes in Gaul who did not 
like the Romans any too well. He crossed the 
Rhone with his army in face of the advance guard 
of the Romans. It is a great military problem how 
to cross a great river in face of an enemy, and any 
boy will be interested in seeing how Hannibal 
brought his large army forward, especially his forty 
elephants. Keeping well inland so as to avoid the 
Roman army near the coast, he approached the 
Alps which he was determined to cross before win- 
ter. His success in bringing his army over, though 
with loss, is regarded as one of the great achieve- 
ments in war. 

Livy's account of it is picturesque. But I — who 



HANNIBAL. 6 1 

sometimes believe that I have been over the same 
pass, at the same season of the year, namely Octo- 
ber — think Livy made his account rather from 
some hard experiences of his own in the mountains, 
than from any chronicles which had lasted two 
hundred and fifty years. It is in this story that the 
famous account comes in of their cutting through 
the rocks by heating them and pouring on vinegar. 

The soldiers being then set to make a way down the cliff, 
by which alone a passage could be effected, and it being nec- 
essary that they should cut through the rocks, having felled, 
and lopped, a great number of large trees which grew around, 
they made a huge pile of timber; and as soon as a strong 
wind fit for exciting the flames arose, they set fire to it, and, 
pouring vinegar on the heated stones, they render them soft 
and crumbling. They then open a way with iron instruments 
through the rock thus heated by the fire, and soften its de- 
clivities by gentle windings, so that not only the beasts of 
burden, but also the elephants, could be led down it. 

Now if you ask me what I think about this, I 
should say that Hannibal was a much better en- 
gineer than Livy. He undoubtedly had with his 
army the best engineers of the time who knew the 



62 BOYS HEROES. 

best processes of the time for quarrying and re- 
ducing rock. Given the problem which was to im- 
prove the mountain trail, so that an army of seventy 
thousand men might descend from the summit in 
four days, they undoubtedly did things that very 
much surprised the natives. Among those things 
such enterprises as this of heating and cracking 
rock would have been most likely to be remem- 
bered by tradition. And, if the use of vinegar or 
any other acids came into the quarrying of that 
time, the mountaineers would very naturally have 
remembered it. 

But I should not advise any member of the Ap- 
palachian Club who wanted to improve the pass 
through Carter's Notch, which in my judgment 
needs improvement, to rely on a bottle of vinegar. 

By the time the army was in the plains of Lom- 
bardy, it was much reduced. Hannibal had started 
from Saguntum with a good force, but he had sent 
back many, some I suppose had deserted in Gaul, 
and in the passes of the Alps he had lost great 
numbers. What he had, however, were picked men, 
and in the spring, refreshed by their winter in the 



HANNIBAL. 63 

country, they met Flaminius with his army of Ro- 
mans. The Carthaginians were hardened and 
trained by their winter's experience. The Romans, 
though they had been worsted at Trebia and the Po, 
were confident with true Roman conceit. But they 
had been recruited at a time, when, according to 
Livy, the Romans were more sunk in sloth and unfit 
for war than ever. Flaminius himself was head- 
strong and rash, and Hannibal fooled him to his 
ruin. When you go to Italy, you will not find it hard 
to see the " reedy lake of Thrasymene " where the 
Roman army was ruined and Flaminius killed. You 
can see it from the railway as you ride from Flor- 
ence to Rome. Here is Lord Byron's description : 

I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles 
The host between the mountains and the shore, 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files, 
And torrents, swollen to rivers with their gore, 
Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er. 



64 boys' heroes. 

Far other scene is Thrasimene now; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; 
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 
Lay where their roots are ; but a brook hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain ; 
And Sanguinetto tells you where the dead 
Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red. 

The Roman people were like all nations who 
have not had recent experience of war at home, 
and when they saw their legions march out well-ap- 
pointed, they had been quite sure of victory. Of a 
sudden one straggler returning, announced what 
they could not bear to believe, that their consul was 
dead and their army routed. It was then and thus 
that this city of Rome began to feel the pressure of 
that long war which lasted sixteen years, while 
Hannibal ravaged one part of Italy and another. 
It was the beginning of the training which was to 
cure Rome, for the moment, of her luxury and to 
lift her, for the time, from her degeneracy. 

You have heard it said that the luxuries of 



HANNIBAL. 65 

Capua, the chief city of Campania, were really what 
defeated Hannibal. It has become a proverbial ex- 
pression to say of any luxury which destroys a suc- 
cessful man, that it is his " Capua." But I think 
the best opinion of the best military men relieves 
Hannibal from the charge implied in this sneer. It 
is very easy for you and me, sitting at our ease here 
two thousand and one hundred years after all this 
happened, to say that, after routing the Roman 
army at Thrasymene, he should have marched di- 
rectly on Rome and destroyed it. But he certainly 
knew his business better than we do. He passed 
by Rome into Campania, and made his headquar- 
ters for a time at Capua. For the next fifteen years 
and more he did very much what he chose in Italy, 
often advancing to the very walls of Rome, but 
never strong enough to storm a city where by this 
time every man was a soldier, nor to blockade it so 
as to starve it into submission. In this time he 
partially regained the command of Sicily, which the 
Carthaginians had lost after the first Punic War. 
He was cruelly disappointed and the fate of the 
world was changed when Claudius Nero, the Roman 



66 boys' heroes. 

commander in the north of Italy, defeated Hasdru- 
bal, Hannibal's brother, who was bringing him re- 
inforcements. Nero sent HasdrubaPs head into 
Hannibal's camp, and when he saw it, he sighed 
and said, "I see the fate of Carthage." 

The end came when Cornelius Scipio built a 
Roman fleet, carried an army across to Africa and 
threatened Carthage itself. It is from this bold 
enterprise that we take our proverb, " He carried 
the war into Africa." The Carthaginian senate 
could not endure to the end. They began sending 
for Hannibal, who at first would not come. At 
last he came and the great battle of Zama followed, 
one of the critical battles of the history of the 
world. Whatever advantage the Carthaginians had 
was in their cavalry. Their force of infantry was 
inferior to that of the Romans. But the Romans 
had for allies the Numidians, people who lived in 
the country which we now call Morocco. It is one 
of the most productive countries in the world. If 
it had a decent government, it would be the gran- 
ary of Europe to-clay. Now the Numidian horse 
and their force of elephants were more than a match 



HANNIBAL. 67 

for those of the Carthaginians. The battle began 
by a conflict in which the Numidians swept the Car- 
thaginian cavalry out of the field. The Roman in- 
fantry then pressed on the Carthaginian infantry. 
They stood the attack at first, but when the Nu- 
midian cavalry returned and joined in the attack, 
the Carthaginian army gave way — and Hannibal's 
career of victory was ended. 

He told the Carthaginian senate that all was 
lost, and they made such terms as Romans would 
grant to the conquered. Poor Hannibal could not 
long remain in Carthage. He was one of the chief 
magistrates there for a year or two. But one party 
there hated him worse than the Romans hated him. 
He, however, addressed the people of Carthage and 
taught them that it was necessary. He said in his 
first address to them, " having left you when nine 
years old I have returned after an absence of thirty- 
six years." He had never been in his own country 
since he was a child. 

He knew that the Romans would wish to make 
him a prisoner. He sailed at once to Syria, where 
he entrusted himself to Antiochus the Third, one of 



68 boys' heroes. 

the successors, after nearly a century, of Alexander 
the Great. He served Antiochus faithfully till the 
Romans so pressed him that he was forced to give 
up his guest and Hannibal retired to Bithynia. 
Here again the Romans followed him up. They 
could not be at ease while he lived, and Flaminius 
was sent to Prusias, King of Bithynia, to demand 
his surrender. Prusias was mean enough to send 
troops for his arrest. When Hannibal found his 
escape was cut off, he took poison and died. 



V. 



KING ARTHUR. 



THE missionary Augustine, who went from 
Rome to Britain to convert the Saxons to 
Christianity, landed in Kent in the year 596. From 
that visit of his, with forty companions, the present 
organization. of the English church is derived. 

But there were Christians in Britain before Au- 
gustine. Christianity had been introduced there 
in the Roman Army, and so long as the Roman 
posts were maintained there, there were Christian 
churches. The native Britons had embraced some 
form of Christianity. The Saxons, who began to 
invade them as soon as the Roman garrisons were 
withdrawn, had no Christian faith or institutions. 
It is of the conversion of these Saxon intruders 
that we speak, when we say that Augustine and his 

companions converted England to Christianity. 
69 



70 BOYS HEROES. 

For more than a hundred years before Augustine 
came, there had been a series of incursions by 
the Saxons, and of battles between them and the 
Britons whom they found there. The Romans, 
with their garrisons, had kept the peace. But, 
nearly two centuries before Augustine's time, the 
Romans had been so hard pressed by the warlike 
tribes who invaded them, that they had been 
obliged to withdraw their garrisons. In those two 
centuries the British tribes began to quarrel with 
each other. Much such a result followed as would 
follow in the East Indies now, if the English army 
was withdrawn. In the midst of these disturbances 
among themselves, the Saxons and Angles, from 
the north of Germany, found out that Britain was 
a good place to live in, and began their invasions. 
They were the neighbors of the Lombards or Long- 
beards, who at about the same time marched south 
into Italy, whose general was Garibald, a name 
which has re-appeared in another Lombard general 
of later time. 

In these two centuries of civil wars, and war 
against invaders with very little written history, you 




KING ARTHURS ROUND TABLE. 



KING ARTHUR. 7 1 

may be sure, and very little civilization, there 
was just the chance for the growth of legends. 
" What your grandfather told," and " what your 
grandmother remembered," could grow in that 
soil, as mushroom spores will grow if you give 
them the soil they love. So that on the very 
ground where yesterday you heard no story at all, 
you might to-morrow hear of Jack the Giant Killer, 
of Tom Thumb, of Jack and the Bean Stalk, of 
the Rye Pudding, of the four and twenty black 
birds, and if you were a little older, of Lancelot, of 
Gawain, of Elaine, of the Round Table and the 
Hundred Knights thereof. 

When, in a historical mood, you look back in the 
chronicles, to see what all this started from, you 
do not find great comfort. Here is the confession 
of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote six hundred 
years after the time he says Arthur died. 

" Whilst occupied on many and various studies, 
I happened to light upon the history of the kings 
of Britain, and wondered that in the account which 
Gildas and Bede, in their elegant treatises had 
given of them, I found nothing said of those kings 



72 



BOYS HEROES. 



who lived here before the Incarnation of Christ, 
nor of Arthur, and many others who succeeded 
after the Incarnation ; though their actions both 
deserved immortal fame, and were also celebrated 
by many people in a pleasant manner and by heart, 
as if they had been written. Whilst I was intent 
upon these and such like thoughts, Walter, arch- 
deacon of Oxford, a man of great eloquence, and 
learned in foreign histories, offered me a very an- 
cient book in the British tongue, which, in a con- 
tinued regular story and elegant style, related the 
actions of them all, from Brutus the first king of 
the Britons, down to Cadawallader the son of Cad- 
wallo. At his request therefore, though I had not 
made fine language my study, by collecting expres- 
sions from other authors, yet contented with my 
own homely style, I undertook the translation of 
that book into Latin." 

You see that this excellent Geoffrey was sur- 
prised that in the two best histories of England 
which he knew, the great King Arthur's name was 
not so much as mentioned. This is probably due 
to the fact that he belonged in romance and not 



KING ARTHUR. 73 

in history. The truth is, that there were, in those 
ages, many kings and many lords. Where the 
Saxons landed, and made a raid, the Britons gath- 
ered and opposed them. But gradually the Sax- 
ons made head against them, and established their 
permanent colonies, exactly as, later down, their 
descendants established Massachusetts, and Prov- 
idence Plantations, and Maryland and Virginia in 
America. In after years, more or less was remem- 
bered of the British chieftains, and on this more 
or less, all the romance writers, when the time for 
romances came, hung their stories. 

The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," one of the old 
collections of annals, supplies in simple form the 
most important facts for the years in which Arthur 
lived, if he lived at all. You ought to read it, to 
see what history is made from. 

Anno. 508, This year Cerdic and Cynric slew a British 
king, whose name was Natan-leod, and five thousand men 
with him. After that the country was named Natan-lea, as 
far as Cerdicsford [Charford]. 

A. 509. This year St. Benedict, the abbot, father of all 
monks, went to heaven. 



74 BOYS HEROES. 

A. 5!0-5i3- 

A. 514. This year the West Saxons came to Britain with 
three ships, at the place which is called Cerdic's-ore, and 
Stuf and Whitgar fought against the Britons and put them 
to flight. 

A. 515-518. 

A. 519. This year Cerdic and Cynric obtained the king- 
dom of the West Saxons ; and the same year they fought 
against the Britons where it is now named Cerdicsford. 
And from that time the royal offspring of the West Saxon 
reigned. 

A. 520-526. 

A. 527. This year Cerdic and Cynric fought against the 
Britons at the place which is called Cerdic's-lea. 

A. 528-529. 

A. 530. This year Cerdic and Cynric conquered the 
island of Wight, and slew many men at Whit-garas-byig. 
[Carisbrooke, in Wight.] 

531-533- 

A. 534. This year Cerdic, the first king of the West 
Saxons, died, and Cynric his son succeeded to the kingdom, 
and reigned from that time twenty-six years ; and they gave 
the whole island of Wight to their two nephews Stuf and 
Whitgar. 

535-537- 

A. 538. This year, fourteen days before the Kalends of 



KING ARTHUR. 75 

March, the sun was eclipsed from early morning till nine in 
the forenoon. 

A. 539- 

A. 540. This year the sun was eclipsed on the twelfth be- 
fore the Kalends of July, and the stars showed themselves 
full-nigh half an hour after nine in the forenoon. 

Now, remember that, according to Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, Arthur died in 542. Observe that in 
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle there is not one word 
about him in thirty-four years before that time. 
Then you will understand that he could not have 
been the single king of all England which the ro- 
mances describe. 

Dr. Lingard says of him : " We know neither the 
period when he lived nor the district over which he 
reigned. He is said to have fought and to have 
gained twelve battles. In most of these, from the 
names of the places, he seems to have been opposed 
to the Angles in Lincolnshire, from the last, at Mt. 
Badon, to the Saxons under Cerdic or Cynric. 
This, whether it was fought under Arthur or not, 
was a splendid and useful victory, which for forty 
years checked the advance of the strangers. Per- 



j6 boys' heroes. 

haps when the reader has been told that Arthur 
was a British chieftain, that he fought many battles, 
that he was murdered by his nephew, and was 
buried in Glastonbury, where his remains were dis- 
covered in the reign of Henry the Second, he will 
have learned all that can be ascertained at the pre- 
sent day, respecting that celebrated warrior." 

It is a good deal as you might read a good his- 
tory of the United States for the first half of this 
century, and possibly not find the name of Te- 
cumseh ; or as you might read one of the last half 
of the century which should not mention Sitting 
Bull. But if, a hundred years hence, you went 
among a spirited tribe of Indians, who had ad- 
vanced a century toward civilization, you might 
find enthusiastic accounts of Sitting Bull and of 
Tecumseh preserved in ballads and stories. And 
these accounts, very likely, would surpass anything 
which was true in the real lives of those chiefs. 

I may say, in passing, that both Tecumseh and 
Sitting Bull were men quite as accomplished as 
the real King Arthur was. As for weapons and 
arts, they were quite in advance of him. 




THE SWORD EXCALIBAK. 



KING ARTHUR. 77 

What King Arthur means, then, to you and me, 
is this. He is the Hero of Chivalry, as Chivalry 
conceived of a Hero, when Chivalry was at its best. 
Sidney Lanier's edition of Sir Thomas Malory's 
History of King Arthur and his Knights of the 
Round Table is a book all boys will like to 
read, and it will be an excellent introduction to 
the Romances of Chivalry. If you ask my advice, 
you will read that first. Then you can read the 
Welsh traditions of King Arthur which this same 
Sidney Lanier edited, under the title of the Boy's 
Mabinogion. Here is a good piece from Sir 
Thomas Malory : 

" Now assay," said Sir Ector to Sir Kay. And anon he 
pulled at the sword with all his might but it would not be. 
" Now shall we assay ? " said Sir Ector to Arthur. 

"I will well," said Arthur, and pulled it out easily. And 
therewithal Sir Ector kneeled down to the earth, and Sir 
Kay. 

" Alas," said Arthur, " mine own dear father and brother, 
why kneel ye to me ? " 

" Nay, nay, my lord Arthur, it is not so : I was never your 
father nor of your blood, but I wote [know] well ye are of an 
higher blood than I weened [thought] ye were." And then 



J& boys' heroes. 

Sir Ector told him all. Then Arthur made a great moan 
when he understood that Sir Ector was not his father. 

"Sir," said Ector unto Arthur, "will ye be my good and 
gracious lord when ye are king?" 

"Else were I to blame," said Arthur, "for ye are the man 
in the world that I am most beholding {obliged'] to, and my 
good lady and mother your wife, that as well as her own 
hath fostered and kept me. And if ever it be God's will 
that I be king, as ye say, ye shall desire of me what I may 
do, and I shall not fail you." 

" Sir," said Sir Ector, " I will ask no more of you but that 
you will make my son, your fostered brother, Sir Kay, sene- 
schal of all your lands." 

" That shall be done, sir," said Arthur, " and more by the 
faith of my body ; and never man shall have that office but 
he while that he and I live." 

Both Lord Tennyson and Mr. Bulwer in our 
time have felt that in this legend of Arthur was 
the best subject for a great English poem. Lord 
Lytton said once, that he had more hope of being 
remembered in another century, because he had 
written King Arthur, than for any fame which any 
of his novels would have then. But you will find 
it hard to buy a copy to-day, and there are good 
public libraries which do not contain " Bulwer's 



KING ARTHUR. 79 

King Arthur." I am afraid that in truth Bulwer 
had "to pump." That is a phrase Mr. Emerson 
once used to me when he was speaking of another 
poet. The story is difficult to follow, it is long- 
winded, it is not founded on the real legends. 

Still there are noble passages in it. Here is 
Arthur's prayer when Merlin has revealed to him 
that 

to the Saxon's sway 
Thy kingdom and thy crown shall pass away. 

Arthur cries 

O thou, the Almighty lord of earth and heaven 
Without whose will not e'en a sparrow falls, 
If to my sight the fearful truth were given, 
If thy dread hand hath graven on these walls 
The Assyrian's doom, and to the strangers' sway 
My kingdom and my crown shall pass away, 

Grant this — a freeman's, if a monarch's prayer ! — 

Life, while my life one man from chains can save ; 
While earth one refuge, or the cave one lair, 
Yields to the closing struggle of the brave ! — 
Mine the last desperate but avenging hand, 
If reft the sceptre, not resigned the brand ! 



80 boys' heroes. 

But, as every boy knows, who will read these 
lines, the tenderness, the vigor, the simplicity and 
the truth of Lord Tennyson's Idyls have made 
men and women forget all the other poetry about 
King Arthur. The Idyls have been published at 
various times, and are not published in the chron- 
ological order of their own story. But in the 
later editions you will find in what order the 
author means that they shall be read. 

"It is all good," — as said of , — no 

matter for that story now. It will do another time. 
We will take almost at haphazard the true account 
of Arthur's origin. 

To whom the novice garrulously again : 
" Yea, one, a bard ; of whom my father said, 
Full many a noble war-song had he sung, 
Ev'n in the presence of an enemy's fleet, 
Between the steep cliff and the coming wave ; 
And many a mystic lay of life and death 
Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops, 
When round him bent the spirits of the hills 
With all their dewy hair blown back like flame : 
So said my father — and that night the bard 
Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the King 



KING ARTHUR. 8 1 

As well nigh more than man, and railed at those 

Who called him the false son of Gorlois : 

For there was no man knew from whence he came ; 

But after tempest, when the long wave broke 

All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, 

There came a day as still as heaven, and then 

They found a naked child upon the sands 

Of dark Dundagil by the Cornish sea : 

And that was Arthur ; and they foster'd him 

Till he by miracle was approven king : 

And that his grave should be a mystery 

From all men, like his birth : and could he find 

A woman in her womanhood as great 

As he was in his manhood, then, he sang, 

The twain together well might change the world." 



VI. 



RICHARD THE LION HEARTED. 

I SUPPOSE that the romances about King Arthur 
were first written after knight-errantry had 
died out. I think people remembered the theory of 
Chivalry in that form — and that the detail of it, 
as it appeared in fact — was rather blurred by time. 
But now that we come, in our list of heroes, to 
Richard the Lion Hearted, we come into the do- 
main of real history. I think we may say that this 
was at the very prime of the time of tournaments 
and all the rest of those brilliant shows which make 
the ages of real chivalry so interesting. I think 
that the reason that boys of our time and country 
are so much interested in Richard is that he is so 
well described in Ivanhoe and in the Talisman. 
Then we are all interested in the Crusades. I think 

we all feel that the crusade of Richard ought to 

82 



RICHARD THE LION HEARTED. 83 

have succeeded, and would have succeeded, had it 
been led by one man, and not by a mass-meeting 
or caucus — which is to say, not led at all. 

For my own part, I should like to say that I do 
not myself think that the time for Crusades is over. 
Mr. Gladstone is said to have said once, that he 
would like to see the Sultan sent beyond the Bos- 
phorus, "bag and baggage." The solution of the 
Oriental question, which thus disposes of the Turk- 
ish government, is called familiarly the " bag and 
baggage " policy. I think that if I had the man- 
agement of affairs for a few months, I would take 
the Sultan and settle him in a nice valley of Asia 
Minor with five hundred sheep, and a brand-new 
shepherd's crook. I would tell him that he was in a 
better condition than his ancestors were, and that 
he might now look out for himself. I would give 
similar crooks to the principal officers of his court, 
and let each of them have one hundred sheep, and 
a smaller valley. Then I would provide a decent 
government for Constantinople and the Ottoman 
Empire. 

In the Crusade of the year 1190 and 1191, Rich- 



84 boys' heroes. 

ard and the Western princes had in mind a policy 
not unlike this. Under the inspiration of Peter the 
Hermit, the first Crusade had driven the Turkish 
hordes out from Jerusalem, in the year 1099. I 
was always much obliged to them for selecting a 
date which is so easy to remember. These vagabonds 
had only been there thirty-four years. They were 
genuine savages, as ignorant of the Koran as they 
were of the Bible. They had no more rights there 
than a gang of Apache Indians would have in 
Washington to-day, if in the reign of Frank Pierce 
they had found their way into Washington and had 
ruled in riot there ever since. Before their time, 
for four hundred years, the country had been under 
Mussulman sway, but it was the sway of Arabians, 
or Egyptians, who had about as much civilization 
as anybody in their times. These vagabond Turks 
had none ; nor have their successors had more than 
a varnish of any up to this hour. 

The first Crusaders drove them out of Jerusalem, 
* t bag and baggage," as Mr. Gladstone says. They 
established in their place Godfrey of Boulogne, as 
king of Jerusalem, and there he and his successors 



RICHARD THE LION HEARTED. 85 

reigned for nearly a hundred years. A queer time 
they had of it, and a hard one. For if there was 
anything which they did not understand, it was 
dealing with such people as they had to do with 
there. 

At the end of nearly a hundred years, there was 
a very accomplished Mussulman prince named Sal- 
adin, who had succeeded in possessing himself of 
Egypt. He is the Saladin whom you read of in The 
Talisman. He made it his business to sweep out 
the Crusaders " bag and baggage " in his turn. And 
in a terrible battle which he fought on the fourth of 
July, 1 187, he destroyed the army of the king of Jeru- 
salem, and took him prisoner. He killed the bishop 
who bore the Holy Cross or what they thought so. 
And many of the Christian soldiers thought that 
this terrible defeat was due to the treachery of that 
same Grand Master of the Templars, of whom you 
read in Ivanhoe. 

This critical battle of Tiberias, which established 
for seven hundred years Moslem power in the holy 
land, ended in a conflict on that level plain, in the 
Mount of the Beatitudes — where the Saviour is 



86 boys' heroes. 

supposed to have pronounced the blessing on the 
Peacemakers. Strange to say it is the crater of an 
extinct volcano. 

The stragglers from the Christian kingdom of 
Jerusalem came back to Europe. To redeem the 
city again, the third Crusade was set on foot with 
the support, more or less cordial, of all the great 
Western princes. In this Crusade our King Rich- 
ard was the first king to engage publicly. 

Here is the account of his departure, given by 
Richard of Devizes : 

The time of commencing his journey pressed hard upon 
King Richard, as he, who had been first of all the princes on 
this side the Alps in taking up the cross, was unwilling to be 
last in setting out. A king worthy of the name of king, who, 
in the first year of his reign, left the kingdom of England for 
Christ, scarcely otherwise than if he had departed never to 
return. So great was the devotion of the man, so hastily, 
so quickly, and so speedily did he run, yea fly, to avenge- the 
wrongs of Christ. 

He went through France to Marseilles and sailed 
from that port towards Syria. The French king 
took his army by land, because he was apt to be sea- 



RICHARD THE LION HEARTED. 87 

sick. Although Richard started from England as 
early as the twelfth of December, 1 189, he did not 
arrive at Palestine until the day before Whit-Sunday, 
1 191, having been more than a year on the way. 
This long delay was really due to the customs of 
chivalry. For the king could not resist the tempta- 
tion of taking a personal part in every encounter 
which turned up ; and indeed, through the whole ex- 
pedition, he bore himself more as a knight-errant 
seeking for glory, than as the far-seeing leader of a 
great movement. Thus he stopped on the way to set- 
tle a claim he had on the king of Sicily for the dowry 
of Richard's sister. Among other things, he found 
time to be married with great pomp to Berengaria, 
Princess of Navarre, one of the few ladies who ac- 
companied the expedition. I think the marriage 
had been agreed upon before they started. He had a 
little war with some banditti, whom the chroniclers 
call Griffones, in Sicily, and seems to have beaten 
them thoroughly. He took possession of the island 
of Cyprus, after some hard fighting. Under his 
successor in the rule of England, Mr. Benjamin 
DTsraeli, Cyprus has fallen under English rule 



88 boys' heroes. 

again. Even after he had left Cyprus he fell in 
with a large Saracen ship, and instead of keeping 
on toward Palestine he boldly attacked her. 

Though our galleymen rowed repeatedly round the ship, to 
scrutinize the vessel, they could find no point of attack ; it 
appeared so solid and so compact, and of such strong materi- 
als, and it was defended by a guard of warriors who kept 
throwing darts at them. Our men, therefore, relished not 
the darts, nor the great height of the ship, for it was enough 
to strive against a foe on equal ground, whereas a dart thrown 
from above always tells upon those below, since its iron 
point falls downward. 

Hence their ardor relaxed, but the spirit of the king in- 
creased, and he exclaimed aloud, " Will you allow the ship 
to get away untouched and uninjured ? Shame upon you ! 
are you grown cowards from sloth, after so many triumphs ? 
The whole world knows you are engaged in the service of 
the Cross, and you will have to undergo the severest punish- 
ment, if you permit an enemy to escape while he lives, and is 
thrown in your way." 

Our men, therefore, making a virtue of necessity, plunged 
eagerly into the water under the ship's side, and bound the 
rudder with ropes to turn and retard its progress, and some, 
taking hold of the cables, leapt on board the ship. The 
Turks receiving them manfully, cut them to pieces as they 



RICHARD THE LION HEARTED. 89 

came on board, and lopping off the head of this one, and the 
hands of that, and the arms of another, cast their bodies into 
the sea. * * * 

But they, after a mighty struggle, drove the Turks back 
as far as the prow of the ship, while from the interior others 
rushed upon our men in a body, preparing to die bravely or 
repel the foe. They were the choice youth of the Turks, 
fitted for war, and suitably armed. The battle lasted a long 
time, and many fell on both sides ; but at last, the Turks^ 
pressing boldly on our men, drove them back, though they 
resisted with all their might, and forced them from the 
ship. * * * * 

The king seeing the dangers his men were in, and that, 
while the ship was uninjured, it would not be easy to take 
the Turks with the arms and provisions therein, commanded 
that each of the galleys should attack the ship with its spur 
— i. e. the iron beak. Then the galleys, drawing back, 
were borne by rapid strokes of the oar against the ship's 
sides, to pierce them — and thus the vessel was instantly 
broken, and becoming pervious to the waves, began to sink. 
When the Turks saw it, they leaped into the sea to die, and 
our men killed some of them and drowned the rest. The 
king kept thirty-five alive, namely the admiral and men who 
were skilled in making machines. But the rest perished, the 
arms were abandoned and the serpents sunk and scattered 
about by the waves of the sea. If that ship had arrived 



90 BOYS HEROES. 

safely at the harbor of Acre, the Christians would never have 
taken the city. But by the care of God, it was converted 
into the destruction of the infidel, and the aid of the Chris- 
tians, who hoped in him, by means of King Richard, who by 
his help, prospered in war. 

To give poor Richard his due, he had terrible 
malarial attacks all through this expedition. The 
King of France was as unfortunate, and finally suc- 
cumbed to them. Richard scarcely landed at 
Acre, where the Crusaders were besieging the 
Saracens, before he fell sick. This is the period 
which readers of The Talisman will remember. 
The besieging army was itself closely watched and 
almost besieged by Saladin, on the hills behind the 
town. The princes who had arrived before Rich- 
ard, were very indignant at his long delay on the 
route, and certainly they had some reason. But, 
when he and his men were landed, the attack on 
the city took more life. Though sick himself, he 
joined in it, while he directed it. Special feats of 
his are recorded by the chroniclers. At last, " on 
the Friday after the translation of St. Benedict," 
the Turks gave hostages for the delivery of the 



RICHARD THE LION HEARTED. 9 1 

Holy Cross, and of their captives, and marched 
out of the city. The King of France and the King 
of England entered it, "and divided everything 
equally between them." 

After such a success, Saladin may well have con- 
sidered his cause well nigh lost ; and after he lost 
the battle of Jaffa, he might, even with honor, have 
given it up. But the weakness of the whole Cru- 
sade was in the division of its chiefs. The King 
of France was dissatisfied and went home, leaving, 
however, ten thousand men to fight in Palestine. 

The battle of Jaffa, so called, is a better illus- 
tration than you are apt to find in history of the 
hard hand-to-hand fighting. It is described, even 
to tediousness in the romances, but not very fre- 
quent in real warfare. Here is a specimen of 
Vinsauf's bloody narrative : 

The commander of the Turks was an admiral, by name 
Tekedmus, a kinsman of the sultan. He was a most cruel 
persecutor, and a persevering enemy of the Christians. He 
had under his command seven hundred chosen Turks of 
great valor, of the household troops of Saladin, each of 
whose companies bore a yellow banner with pennons of a 



92 BOYS HEROES. 

different color. These men, coming at full charge, attacked 
our men who were turning off from them towards the stand- 
ard, cutting at them, and piercing them severely, so that 
even the firmness of our chiefs wavered under the weight of 
the pressure. Yet our men remained immovable, compelled 
to repel force by force, and the conflict grew thicker, the 
blows were redoubled, and the battle raged fiercer than be- 
fore. The one side labored to crush, and the other to repel. 
Both exerted their strength, and although our men were by 
far the fewest in numbers, they made havoc of great mul- 
titudes of the enemy. In truth the Turks were furious in 
the assault and greatly distressed our men,whose blood poured 
forth in a stream beneath their blows. On perceiving them 
to reel and give way, William de Barris, a renowned knight, 
breaking through the ranks, charged the Turks with his men, 
and such was the vigor of the onset that some fell by the 
edge of the sword, and others only saved themselves by rapid 
flight. The King mounted on a bay Cyprian steed, which 
had not its match, bounded forward in the direction of the 
mountains, and scattered those he met on all sides : for the 
enemy fled from his sword and gave way, while helmets- tot- 
tered beneath it, and sparks flew forth from its strokes. 

And so on, and so on, for page after page. Any 
one but Richard would have had his fill of fighting 
in these fifteen months. He defeated Saladin in 



RICHARD THE LION HEARTED. 93 

battle again and again. But he did not capture 
Jerusalem. Fever after fever prostrated his strength 
and at last he consented to a truce. Saladin in- 
sisted on the destruction of the fortifications of 
Ascalon. But he gave to the pilgrims free access 
to Jerusalem. This was, in fact, all that they asked 
before the Crusades began. 

Poor Richard, you know, was taken prisoner on 
his way home, and his ransom was a heavy one. 
Nor did things fare well with him in England. 
Fighting to the last, he was killed in his forty-sec- 
Ond year. 

For many and many a year the Christian powers, 
who represent the States which united in the Cru- 
sades, have had the beggar Sultan in their keeping. 
He is the " sick man," whom they condescend to 
keep alive. He is the nominal lord of Jerusalem 
now. But he could not hold it an hour, if England 
and Germany and France and Austria and Russia 
did not prefer that he should. 

Possibly his star may pale some day. At the 
end of some Egyptian war, some Garnet Wolseley 



94 BOYS HEROES. 

will be bidden to march two days inland from 
Joppa and take possession of Jerusalem. What 
Richard and Philip and Henry and the rest fought 
for, for years, would be done, then, in forty-eight 
hours, by three or four English regiments. In 
some such way it may be that some of our young 
readers will see 

THE LAST CRUSADE. 



VII. 



BAYARD. 



THE Chevalier Bayard — without fear and with- 
out reproach — is on our list of heroes. 

His life was worth writing and has been well 
written. He is most happy in the description 
which always accompanies his name, which I have 
translated. Many a person knows him as the 
Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche — who does 
not know where he lived, where he fought, or to 
what century he belonged. 

He was the son of a loyal soldier who had lost 
his arm in battle. His education was conducted 
at Grenoble, under the eyes of his uncle, the 
bishop of that place — the brother of Bayard's 
mother. How many boys who read this would be 
well pleased were their education as simple ? " It 
was completed," says his biographer," when he was 
95 



96 boys' heroes. 

twelve years old, for he had then learned to read 
and to sign his name, and this was learning enough 
for a gentleman of those days." I am sorry to add 
that some of them, whose writing I have seen, 
signed their names very badly. 

When he was only thirteen, he was presented to 
Charles, Duke of Savoy — the ancestor of the 
present King of Italy. The king was pleased 
with the boy, and made him one of his pages. He 
was in company with the duke at the city of Lyons 
once when they met the King of France, Charles 
the Eighth. The king liked him also, and asked 
the duke to give him to him, somewhat as you 
must ask for a fine dog or a parrot. The Duke of 
Savoy did so, and thus the young fellow entered 
into the service of one of the first princes of his 
time. That is, he was at the court of Charles, 
while his daily employments were those of a page 
of the Count of Ligny — Louis of Luxembourg who 
was a favorite of the king. 

When he was only sixteen years old a Lyonese 
gentleman gave a great tournament in honor of 
the king. The page, Bayard, was determined to 



BAYARD. 97 

be there, but he had no horse, no arms, and no 
money to buy them. A friend of his, named 
Bellabre, advised him to go to his uncle — and I 
am not sure but that here is the origin of that 
slang phrase in which a person in need, who bor- 
rows money, is said "to go to his uncle." The 
uncle was goodnatured, and sent the two young 
friends to his own "furnisher," with a note that 
he should do for them whatever they asked. The 
boys did not spare. They spent four hundred 
crowns each, which was thought an enormous sum. 
But the uncle was reconciled, when it proved that 
the money was well spent. For the Sire de Vau- 
drey himself, who had arranged the tournament, 
was overcome by the unknown young adventurer, 
and then when, according to the custom, with his 
visor lifted at last, Bayard passed before the ladies 
who looked on, they were all surprised to see 
that such great success had been won by Piquet. 
" Piquet " was the nickname the king had given 
him, as if one should call him " Spur." The king 
was the only person the young fellows had en- 
trusted with their secret. He had not had a mo- 



98 boys' heroes. 

ment's fear for his favorite " Piquet." He said, 
" God grant to you what I see beginning ; you shall 
be Prud-homme," by which he meant, " you shall 
be recognized as a leader of men," a prophecy 
which was fulfilled. 

The times were the times for personal daring. 
Gunpowder had not wholly put plate armor and 
the customs of chivalry out of the way, but the end 
of them had all but come. 

I am not sure but Dumas took the idea of his 
Three Musketeers from the inseparable alliance 
between Bayard, his friend Bellabre, and the cap- 
tain of their company, whose name was Louis d'Ars. 
In 1493, they all crossed the Alps together with 
King Charles, who had undertaken the conquest 
of Naples. Bayard was twenty years old ; and 
thus began the career of fighting, which he followed 
till he died at the age of forty-eight, with only very 
short interruptions of the days of peace. Like 
other soldiers, of that country and that time, he 
had various fortunes. But in all adventure he 
showed the unflinching courage which has given 
him his fame ; and the stories told of him are ex- 



BAYARD. IOI 

actly like those told in the romances of Arthur 
and of Amadis. 

While the French were masters of most of 
Southern Italy, Bayard was made Governor of the 
city of Minervino. He was always in the saddle, 
as if seeking for adventure, and one day captured 
a convoy of the Spanish enemy, and secured fifteen 
thousand ducats. A Gascon officer claimed half 
the prize, as having assisted in the capture ; but 
the court which heard the case refused to ac- 
knowledge the claim. The man grumbled about 
this, and said if he had had the money it would 
have enabled him to lead an honorable life for the 
rest of his days. " Is that all you need for valour 
and honour ? " said Bayard, and exhibited the 
tempting ducats. "They are nice lozenges to 
work such a cure, are they not ? I see you want 
to eat them, and you shall." So he gave the dis- 
contented officer half the money and distributed 
the rest among the soldiers. 

But the end of the French occupation of Southern 
Italy had come. The invasion which had begun 
as a gay promenade, ended after many years of 



102 BOYS HEROES. 

success in a painful and laborious retreat. In this 
Bayard was the soul of the army. 

It was at the battle of Garigliano that he re- 
peated the achievement of Horatius. He and a 
gentleman named Basco, were riding a little sepa- 
rated from the army. Suddenly they saw a body 
of Spaniards who were approaching the bridge over 
the Garigliano, which they meant to hold against 
the French army. Basco rushed to warn the 
French. Bayard remained and held the bridge 
alone. The four first knights who met him " bit the 
dust." The Spanish leader rushed forward, sword 
in hand, and fell dead. " Like a tiger set free, Bay- 
ard held the bridge against them all, so that his ene- 
mies thought that here was some devil, whom they 
could not believe to be a man." He held it till the 
French arrived in force enough to drive the Span- 
iards back, and thus saved the army. For this 
gallant deed he was permitted to add the figure of 
a porcupine to his armorial bearings with the motto, 
Vires agminis wins habet. "■ Alone he has the 
power of a host." The Pope Julius, after this, 
offered to make him his sreneral-in-chief. 




THE YOUNG BAYARD ON HORSEBACK. 



BAYARD. IO3 

" I shall never have but two masters," said 
Bayard, "on earth the king of France, and my 
God in Heaven." And he returned with the army 
into France. 

In 15 10 Bayard was sent by the King of France 
to assist the Duke of Ferrara, some of whose do- 
minions were claimed by the pope. The duke con- 
fided to him a plan for poisoning the pope, but 
Bayard was enraged, and told him he would him- 
self inform the pope, if he did not renounce so base 
a scheme. In the siege of Brescia he was wounded'; 
and after that city fell, he was carried on a litter to 
a house where a lady had been deserted by her hus- 
band, and was left alone with her two daughters. 
Bayard placed two soldiers at the door with orders 
to protect the house from all molestation, and gave 
to each of the men five hundred crowns, as his rec- 
ompense for losing a share in the plunder of the 
city. When he was partly healed and was about to 
leave, the lady whom he had so served, fell on her 
knees before him and begged him to accept a pres- 
ent in token of her gratitude. Bayard smiled and 
asked how much the casket held which she pressed 



104 BOYS HEROES. 

upon him. The poor woman, abashed, said, " Two 
thousand five hundred golden ducats, sir, but if this 
be not a large enough present, we will try to make it 
more." " No, madame, " said the knight, " I do not 
wish any money. You have rendered me service 
far beyond what I could render you. I ask for your 
friendship and I hope you will accept mine in re- 
turn." She was surprised by his courtesy, threw 
herself at his feet again, and said she would not rise 
until he accepted her present. " If you wish I will 
do so," said Bayard, " but am I not to have the 
pleasure of bidding your daughters farewell ? " 
When the girls came, he thanked them for their 
care of him, and said, " I would gladly give you some 
token of it. But soldiers have not often jewels to 
give away. Your mother has made me a present of 
twenty-five hundred ducats. I beg each of you 
to accept one thousand for a dowry, and I hope you 
will be my almoner in dividing the rest among the 
convents which have been pillaged." 

Gaston de Foix is said to have lost his life at the 
battle of Ravenna, by rejecting Bayard's advice. 
In 15 13, when Henry the Eighth of England routed 



BAYARD. 1 05 

the French in the battle of Therouenne, which took 
the name of the " Battle of the Spurs " from their 
rapid flight, Bayard was taken prisoner. He was 
covering the retreat, at a bridge with a few com- 
panions, and when he had secured this object, he 
told his friends that they must surrender. For him- 
self, finding an English officer lying under a tree, a 
little way from the battle, he spurred up to him, 
pointed his sword, and said " Surrender, Sir Knight, 
or you die." The officer surrendered. But Bayard 
then said, " I am Captain Bayard, and I now surren- 
der to you. Here is my sword." When a few 
days after, there was talk of ransom, Bayard claimed 
that the English officer owed him a ransom first. 
The question was referred to the Emperor and to 
Henry, who were glad to meet a soldier so distin- 
guished as Bayard, and they recognized Bayard's 
claim, and decided that the two ransoms should 
offset each other. 

Francis the First soon after became King of 
France ; he made Bayard lieutenant-general of 
Dauphiny. Francis made another effort to re-con- 
quer Northern Italy, and Bayard accompanied him 



io6 boys' heroes. 

in the campaign. The battle of Marignan tested 
the young king and his companions in arms. When 
it was happily ended, King Francis asked Bayard 
to confer on him the honor of knighthood, a pro- 
cedure, not without precedent, but quite reversing 
the ordinary custom. Bayard at first refused. 

" Sir," he said, " he who has been crowned and anointed with 
the oil sent from Heaven and is king of a realm, so noble, 
the first son of the church, is already a knight above all 
other knights." The King replied, "Bayard, be quick." 
Then Bayard took his sword and replied, " Sir, it would 
avail as much as if it were Roland or Oliver, Godfrey or his 
brother Baudoin. Certes, you are the first king, whom 
knight ever knighted — God grant you may never take flight 
in war." Then looking playfully upon his sword, he said, 
" Thou art right happy to have given the order of chivalry to- 
day to so noble and powerful a king. Certes, my good sword, I 
will keep thee as a relic, guarded above all others, and I will 
never use thee except against Turks, Saracens or Moors." 
Then he made two passes with it and put it back into the 
sheath. 

Bayard seems, however, in the course of every- 
day affairs to have been no courtier. He served 
his king in the saddle and in fight; but other men 



BAYARD. 107 

flattered him in court, amused him and took the 
honors. The historians agree that Francis lost his 
cause against Charles the Fifth, his great enemy, 
because he entrusted his armies to incompetent 
generals. It was thus that after remarkable suc- 
cesses in Italy he lost all but honor, as he said to his 
mother, in the fatal battle of Pavia in the year 1525. 

But he had lost Bayard the year before. Had 
he not lost Bayard he might not have lost the day 
at Pavia. 

In the campaigns by which Francis attempted 
once more to secure Lombardy for France, Bayard 
served his king most loyally, and, where he was, 
France succeeded. But the king had intrusted 
his affairs to his favorite Bormivet, an incompetent 
soldier. Bayard and his troops were driven out of 
Genoa, and when Bonnivet finally had to retreat 
into France, Bayard had to play again the same 
part he played in his youth, when the King of 
France did the same thing, and cover the rear. 

As the army wound along the VaV d'Aosta, the 
Spaniards attacked them ; Bonnivet was wounded. 
Bayard again took command of the rear to save 



io8 boys' heroes. 

the army if it could be saved. He put himself at 
the head of the men at arms, and, animating them 
by his presence and example, to sustain the whole 
shock of the enemy's troops, he gained time for 
the rest of his countrymen to make good their 
retreat. But in this service he received a wound 
which he immediately perceived to be mortal, and 
being unable to continue any longer on horseback, 
he ordered one of his attendants to place him under 
a tree, with his face towards the enemy; then 
fixing his eyes on the guard of his sword, which 
he held up instead of a cross, he addressed his 
prayers to God, and in this posture, which became 
his character both as a soldier and as a Christian, 
he calmly waited the approach of death. The Con- 
stable of Bourbon, who led the foremost of the 
enemy's troops, found him in this situation, and ex- 
pressed regret and pity at the sight. 

" Pity not me," cried the high-spirited chevalier. 
" I die as a man of honor ought, in the discharge of 
my duty ; they indeed are objects of pity who fight 
against their king, their country and their oath." 
He meant the Constable, who understood him. 



BAYARD. 1 09 

The Marquis de Pescara, passing soon after, 
manifested his admiration of Bayard's virtues, as 
well as his sorrow for his fate, with the generosity 
of a gallant enemy ; and finding that he could not 
be removed with safety from that spot, ordered a 
tent to be pitched there, and appointed proper 
persons to attend him. He died, notwithstanding 
their care, as his ancestors had done, on the field 
of battle. Pescara ordered his body to be em- 
balmed, and sent to his relations ; and such was 
the respect paid to military merit in that age, that 
the Duke of Savoy commanded it to be received 
with royal honors in all the cities of his dominions ; 
in Dauphiny, Bayard's native country, the people 
of all ranks came out in a solemn procession to 
meet it. 

Bayard died April 30, 1524. Francis lost Pavia 
and Italy in February of the next year. 

And now why is it that Bayard is on our list of 
heroes ? 

Mostly, I think, because rare good fortune at- 
tached to him the title " chevalier sanspeur et sans re- 
proche" " the knight without reproach and without 



IIO BOYS HEROES. 

fear." Many a knight has deserved such an honor. 
Bayard had the honor given him in such phrase that 
men remembered it. Thousands of young Amer- 
icans have deserved it better than he did. I do 
not think it is this particular man whom one chooses 
to honor or to love. But one does love this quality 
of courage, if it be not merely the courage of an 
unimaginative brute. Courage, if it be stainless 
courage, makes the true hero. 



VIII. 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 



IN our list of heroes, I have included one name 
of one person who was never born, and never 
died, and never lived with a real physical body in 
this world. But strange to say, this name is much 
dearer to most of the readers of this book than 
is any other upon our list. And the man to whom 
it belongs is much better known than are any of 
our other heroes. 

And his name, it is " ROBINSON CRUSOE." 
There are so many editions of the life of Rob- 
inson Crusoe now published, that the best informed 
authority on books would not even pretend to tell 
you what they all were, or how many. It is a book 
for which the demand is perfectly steady, and any 
good edition of it may be printed with almost a 
certainty that the stereotyped plates may be worn 



112 boys' heroes. 

out in printing copies which will be sold. It is a 
book which is quoted among all English-speaking 
people with the certainty that the quotation will be 
understood. Thus, an allusion to the "man Fri- 
day," or to the footprint of the savage in the sand 
would be made quite as surely as an allusion to 
any familiar passage in history, or even in the 
Bible. 

Any people of our race would understand this 
if they had ever read anything at all. Even in 
such a short list of books as that of those which 
Abraham Lincoln read when he was a boy, you 
are almost sure to find Robinson Crusoe. Indeed, 
its literary merit is such, quite apart from the hu- 
man interest which belongs to almost every page, 
that it would appear among the first books of Eng- 
lish fiction, if not as the very first. Of all the stories 
ever written originally in the English language, I 
suppose that Robinson Crusoe, the Pilgrim's Progress 
and Uncle To?n , s Cabin have been the most widely 
read. 

Daniel De Foe, the author, says himself that the 
whole story is an allegory with a religious purpose. 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 113 

He says that it might disclose the religious experi- 
ences of a man known. to him, and that it was writ- 
ten for that purpose. Indeed, he wrote and pub- 
lished a third part, devoted wholly to a Religious 
Vision of Robinson Crusoe. A curious book that is 
indeed. There is in it a picture of Crusoe outside 
the world — as if he were walking along the world's 
orbit and had been left by it. In the background 
you see the earth and the moon, and I think, the 
sun. But I speak from memory only. The book 
is rare and I have not seen it for many years. 

Whatever may have been De Foe's intention, no 
one has, in fact, ever unravelled the allegory of the 
book. It is taken as a piece of the purest narra- 
tive in the English language, and so, in the main, 
I will speak of it here. 

To tell Robinson Crusoe's life in brief, then, as 
I did Bayard's in the preceding chapter, he was 
born in the city of York, in England, September 
30, 1632, of good family, he says. His father had 
been a German from Bremen, who had settled at 
the English seaport of Hull. So " poor old Rob- 
inson Crusoe " might have a place in the Walhalla. 



114 BOYS HEROES. 

The Walhalla is a splendid temple near Ratisbon, 
in which the king of Bavaria places busts or stat- 
ues of the men and women of German race who 
have served the world. Among others are William 
the Third of England, and the great Katherine of 
Russia. Here he ought to put Robinson Kreut- 
zander, otherwise Crusoe. For certainly he has 
done the world quite as good a turn as ever Kath- 
erine did. 

Robinson was the third son of his father. He 
had a rambling turn and would be satisfied with 
nothing but going to sea — and in fact when he 
was but nineteen years old, on September i, 165 1, 
he ran away from home and took passage on a 
ship for London with a young friend who was go- 
ing in his father's ship from Hull to London. 
There is not, in all the story of Robinson Crusoe, 
the slightest reference to the great English politi- 
cal struggles of the time. But it is worth while to 
notice that the first of September, 1651, was two 
days before the great battle of Worcester, in which 
Cromwell finally beat the Royalists and Charles 
the Second fled for his life. Robinson's first storm 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 115 

was, apparently, on the day Charles was beaten. 
Three days after, Robinson is shipwrecked at Yar- 
mouth. This is while Charles is escaping from 
England. The storm in which Robinson's ship 
was lost appears elsewhere in real history. 

The people at Yarmouth sent Robinson and the 
others of the shipwrecked crew to London. Here 
he began life, on a small scale, as a trader with 
Guinea on the coast of Africa, and made one suc- 
cessful voyage there. In a second voyage he was 
taken prisoner by a Moorish corsair, and had to 
serve a Moorish nobleman as a slave. But he for- 
tunately escaped with a black slave named Xury, 
and was picked up by a vessel which carried him 
to Rio Janeiro. 

Here he became a Brazilian planter. He sent 
back to London for such money as he had there, 
which came out to him in well assorted English 
goods. And here he might have lived and died, 
and none of us would ever have heard of him, but 
that he and his neighbors wanted more slaves than 
they had. In an evil hour for Robinson Crusoe he 
engaged in a voyage to the African coast that he 



Il6 boys' heroes. 

might obtain slaves for himself and his friends. 
The vessel, however, had not been long at sea 
when she was struck by a storm and wrecked on a 
small island at the mouth of the River Oronoco. 
Robinson was the only man who saved his life. 
On this island he lived for twenty-eight years. 

The title page of the early editions is perfectly 
distinct as to the place of his residence. In twenty 
places in the book itself he states where he was. 
There is really no excuse for the common state- 
ment of half the school geographies and half the 
newspapers that he lived on Juan Fernandez on 
the other side of South America. 

He had lived twenty-four or twenty-five years 
alone on his island, when on a visit from some 
savages who had come over from the mainland to 
celebrate a victory, he was able to rescue from 
them one of their prisoners, who became his com- 
panion and slave. Robinson gave to him the name 
of " Friday," from the day of his capture. In the 
third year after, they rescued some Spaniards and 
Friday's father, who had been brought over for a 
celebration like the other. The Spaniards had 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 117 

been sent back to the mainland to bring some coun- 
trymen of theirs to join the islanders, when an 
English ship, which proved to be in the hands of 
mutineers, anchored in the offing. Robinson and 
Friday succeeded in rescuing the captain and 
making the mutineers prisoners. The grateful 
captain put the ship at his disposal, as well he 
might. Robinson was eager to leave his domain, 
and sailed with Friday, leaving his new Spanish 
friend to his fate. He did this without hesitation. 
But to us it seems that he ought to have waited. 
He had been on his island, according to his own 
statement, twenty-eight years,two months and nine- 
teen days. This would make his departure from it 
December 19, 1687. But his own figures say that 
he left on the nineteenth of December, 1686, and 
that he arrived in England, June 11, 1687. This 
would give only twenty-seven years and the odd 
months and days on the island. 

He found that the various agents who had had 
the charge of his property were willing to deal 
honestly with him, and that he was a rich man. 
His property in various forms was worth fifty thou- 



J 1 8 boys' heroes. 

sand pounds. In the inquiries regarding this prop- 
erty he went to Lisbon, and he returned through 
France in winter, by a journey which proved most 
perilous. He arrived in England again on the four- 
teenth of January, 1683, having been gone from 
England, this time, nine months. 

He then married, and had three or four children. 
He took a farm in Bedford and became a coun- 
try gentleman, living a most agreeable life. But 
in the midst of his happiness, his wife died, and 
his home was broken up. He felt all a stranger 
in the world. In the beginning of the year 1693, 
he went to London, and there met his nephew, 
whom he had brought up to the sea since his re- 
turn. This nephew proposed to him a voyage to 
his old island, in a ship of which he was master. 
Crusoe struggled against the temptation. But he 
saw no reason why he should not go, as indeed 
there was none, if he could provide well for his 
children, and, after a year's preparation — so much 
time did the outfit for a voyage then require — he 
sailed again from England on January 8, 1694-95. 
It was on this voyage that he almost came to Bos- 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 119 

ton. What a pity he did not ! He had rescued 
the crews of two vessels in great distress — and at 
one moment it seemed as if they might have to 
come for supplies to " Virginia or any part of the 
coast of America." But alas for our fathers, this 
did not prove necessary. On April 10, 1695, they 
found his island, after a good deal of difficulty, 
having touched, at several places which were quite 
wrong. The colonists had had a sufficiently hard 
time, both in repelling invasion from savages, and 
in putting under some of the mutineers. But in 
the end law and order had triumphed. The Span- 
iards were living in Robinson's old castle, and the 
English party in two other little colonies, with 
quite a number of Indians who were, I am sorry to 
say, used as slaves by the rest when they wanted 
them. But there was one party of the savages 
consisting of thirty-seven who lived by themselves, 
on a neck of land in the southeast corner of the 
island ; " the most subjected innocent creatures 
that were ever heard of." The Englishmen had 
obtained wives for themselves in an excursion to 
the neighboring islands. 



120 boys' heroes. 

With these people Robinson Crusoe left a tailor, 
a smith, and two carpenters, and a "general arti- 
ficer "whom he calls, the "Jack-of-all-trades, an 
ingenious and merry fellow." This man married at 
the island an English maid-servant whom they had 
picked up from one of the ships which they had 
relieved by the way. And Robinson left them 
there. He also left a Catholic priest whom they 
had taken from another ship, and this priest mar- 
ried all the men to their savage wives after fit ex- 
planations of the contract to them. After a stay 
of five and twenty days, Robinson left the island. 

Alas ! on the third clay, as they approached 
Brazil, an enormous fleet of canoes surrounded the 
vessel when she was at anchor. When Friday was 
trying to communicate with them, they shot a cloud 
of arrows into the vessel and killed him. With a 
sad heart Robinson went on to the Bay of Todos 
Santos, and here met his old partner. They set 
up a sloop there, which he had brought, ready to 
frame, from England, and sent several more colo- 
nists to the islands with cows, horses, calves and 
swine. These people all arrived safely and Robinson 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 121 

received letters by the sloop from the island after- 
wards. At a later time he had letters once more 
when they were not faring well. And that is the 
very last that was ever heard of them. 

As for Robinson Crusoe, he took passage for the 
East Indies with his nephew. He touched at the 
Cape, at Madagascar, in the Persian Gulf, and in 
the harbor of Bengal, as he calls it, he had a quarrel 
with the crew of his nephew's ship. His nephew 
left him there with all his goods, much as Sindbad 
was once or twice left alone in similar regions. 
But Robinson was not unused to such things. He 
sold his goods and bought diamonds, very good ones, 
so that he could carry all his estate with him. He 
remained there some time, and then with a friend 
taking ship, made a voyage to Sumatra and Siam 
which occupied eight months, and was successful. 

A second successful voyage of five months took 
him to Borneo, and the Spice Islands. In the course 
of his speculations he bought, in good faith, a Dutch 
ship of two hundred tons, and he spent six years 
trading from port to port. But once when he was 
in this vessel, in the river of Cambodia, he found 



122 BOYS HEROES. 

out that he had made a very risky purchase. For 
he had bought her of a pack of mutineers, and, at 
the very moment when he learned this, five armed 
boats were coming down the river to take him as a 
pirate. He had but just time to hoist his anchor 
and make sail when the five boats appeared. Rob- 
inson sank the leading boat, but picked up three of 
her men, from whom he learned the detail of the 
charges made against him. The ship was perfectly 
well known, and it was supposed that he was the 
leader of the mutineers. 

Naturally enough he and his partner did not 
dare to go back to Bengal with such a reputation. 
They kept eastward, and coming into a creek in 
Cochin-China, careened and repaired the vessel, 
with no lack of adventures. 

Persevering eastward he had the good fortune to 
pick up a pilot who took him to a Chinese port 
called Quinchang. And here he fell in with a 
Japanese merchant who bought all his opium and 
took the ship to Japan, and Robinson found him- 
self left alone in China. In those days, however, 
foreigners could travel in China ; and he went by 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 



2 3 



land to Nankin, then to Pekin, and to the city of 
Naum, if any one can find that. 

Then for sixteen days, he went through " No- 
man's-land " and on April 13, 1703, came out at the 
fortress of Argun, the first point which belonged to 
the Czar of Muscovy. Seven months of such 
travelling brought him to Tobolsk, then the capital 
of Siberia ; and here he spent the whole winter. 
He made acquaintance with an exiled nobleman, 
and offered to carry him back to Europe. This 
gentleman declined the offer, but introduced his 
son to Robinson, who brought him successfully to 
Archangel, where they arrived July 18, 1704. And 
here they sailed for the Elbe, and Robinson staid 
four months in Hamburg selling his goods. His 
own share amounted to three thousand four hun- 
dred and seventy-five pounds, seventeen shillings 
and three pence. 

Thence he crossed over land to the Hague, and 
by the packet to England, arrived in London, Jan- 
uary 10, 1705. He says himself, that he had been 
absent from England ten years and nine months ; 
but any one who makes the computation sees that 



124 BOYS HEROES. 

he had been absent eleven years, with the excep- 
tion of two days. " And here," he says, " resolving 
to harass myself no more, I am prepared for a 
longer journey than all those, having lived seventy- 
two years, a life of infinite variety, and learned suffi- 
ciently to know the value of retirement, and the 
blessing of ending our days in peace." 

And this is the last that is known of Robinson 
Crusoe, excepting that he died. That he died, 
is known by the testimony of one of his descendants, 
who lived to the age of manhood. This descend- 
ant, whose name is not known, wrote a ballad, of 
which the first verse is : 

When I was a lad 

I had a cause to be sad 
For my grandfather I did ]ose — O ! 

I bet you a can 

You have heard of the man, 
For his name it was Robinson Crusoe. 

Now Robinson's oldest child was born sometime 
in the year 1691. If this grandchild was born even 
as early as 171 1, and were "a lad" old enough at 
four years of age to feel the sentiment of sadness 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 125 

on the death of a grandfather, Robinson Crusoe 
must have lived to the age of at least eighty-three. 
But of the last nine years of his life, written history 
makes no record, excepting the two letters he re- 
ceived from his island, in that time. The annals 
of those years are to be looked for, and his epitaph 
sought, if anywhere, in the county of Bedfordshire. 
Now it is quite sure that much of the interest 
with which we follow Robinson Crusoe is due to 
the style in which De Foe has told the story. It is, 
perhaps — it is probably — the best long piece of 
narrative English which was ever written. Frank- 
lin, who formed his style on the study of De Foe, 
approaches him I think, more nearly than any other 
writer. So far as the study of authors goes, I think 
that the narrative of these two men would be the 
best model we could give a foreigner. But it is 
not the style of the book which has given it its 
welcome in the world. It is the man, so imagined 
that we think him real, who tells so openly such 
a story of himself. He grows in years, and in char- 
acter, before our eyes. He makes mistakes, he 
commits crimes, he sinks in vices — and he tells of 



126 boys' heroes. 

them. He repents, he turns about, he reforms, he 
gains strength from the Fountain of Strength — 
and he tells us that just as simply. 

It is not often that a book traces a hero from his 
birth to the age of seventy. A certain interest 
attaches to all such books — even when they are 
badly done, even if the hero move on, the same 
unchanged china image, from babyhood to old 
age. The great merit of this book is that the 
hero does change. He profits by experience. He 
profits by advice. He is a different man at forty 
from what he was at thirty, as at thirty he differed 
from what he was at twenty. He is very human. 

And he interests us because he does so much for 
himself, and has not to rest on others. He had 
learned how to make baskets. He had not learned 
how to make pipkins, but he taught himself. He 
made mistakes about his corn, but things came right 
in the end. And he learned, before he was too far 
gone, that the Universe was not his Universe, nor 
the world his world. He determined that the best 
thing for him to do was to be a fellow-workman 
together with God. 



IX. 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



YES," said Enos Tait, " there is a boy's hero. 
He is not a hero like some people on your 
list, whom no boy ever heard of." 

" And what do you know of Israel Putnam ? " 
said his father, who was not very enthusiastic about 
" Old Put." To tell the whole truth, the most pro- 
found students of American History are not apt 
to be enthusiastic when his name is mentioned. 

" First," said Enos bravely, "he left his plough 
in the furrow. I like him for that." In truth I 
have always observed that leaving the plough in 
the furrow is a manoeuvre boys do not dislike — 
when a truly good man suggests or compels it. 

" There is a picture of it in the Town Library," 

said Enos, " and the White Horse is beyond which 

Old Put is going to ride to Lexington." 
127 



128 boys' heroes. 

" Then there is the wolf ! " cried Ethelbert. 

"Yes, there's the wolf. And there is his ride 
down the stone steps. I used to think the steps were 
in Boston, between Cornhill and Brattle street." 

" Then there is ' P. S. P. M. He is hanged,' " said 
his mother. " I always liked that. I read that at 
school before I knew what P. S. or P. M. meant." 

" I think myself," said Mr. Tait, melting a little 
before their enthusiasm, "that that is the best thing 
you have named. What is very funny is, that one 
of the histories alters it to, ' He is executed.' ' Old 
Put' could no more have spelled ' executed ' than 
he could have danced the Redowa." 

" Did he spell badly ? " asked Charlotte. 

"He spelled horribly — could not spell at all." 

" I am sure I like him for that," said poor Char- 
lotte, whose spelling is her very weakest point. I 
always encourage her by telling her that in the 
next century people will spell as they choose [inn 
the next senchury peple wil spel as tha chews]. 

" We will have him for a girls' hero, as well at a 
boys' hero," said Charlotte, well pleased. 

After this we took down from the shelves : 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 129 

Miss Larned's History of Windham County, Daw- 
son's Gleanings from the Harvest Field of American 
History, Humphreys's Life of Putnam, Tarbox's 
Life of Putnam, Fuller's Veil Uplifted, W. B. O. Pea- 
body's Life of Putnam, Swett's Battle of Bunker 
Hill, Lossing's article on Putnam in Harpe?^s 
Magazine. 

Out of these, among us, we collected the narra- 
tives from which Colonel Humphreys made the Life, 
from which the well-known anecdotes in the school- 
books have been taken. 

The truth is that Putnam was by no means a 
great man. If ever anybody was unfit to be a 
Major General, it was he. But he was a thoroughly 
courageous man, and he had the good luck to have 
his story told by Humphreys at a time when the 
people of this country were wild for heroes and 
stories of heroes. No story suffered in Humphreys's 
hands — as the boys and girls will guess who live 
near Horse Neck, and who have seen the terrible 
picture of Putnam's ride in Mr. Lossing's book in 
which he bounds on horseback down the hill there. 

I, who tell you this story, have gone into the 



I30 BOYS HEROES. 

Wolf's Den, and I needed no rope round my waist 
to pull me out. But whether I should have gone in 
were a wolf at the other end, I am not sure. More 
than this, when the wolf was there, it was winter, 
and the rocks were covered with ice, and were " ex- 
ceedingly slippery." If I told the whole story as 
Colonel Humphreys tells it it would take up all 
this chapter. But here is the critical passage : 

Cautiously proceeding onward, he came to the ascent; 
which he slowly mounted on his hands and knees until he 
discovered the glaring eyeballs of the wolf, who was sitting 
at the extremity of the cavern. Startled at the sight of fire, 
she gnashed her teeth, and gave a sullen growl. As soon as 
he had made the necessary discovery, he kicked the rope as 
a signal for pulling him out. The people at the mouth of 
the den, who had listened with painful anxiety, hearing the 
growling of the wo]f, and supposing their friend to lie in the 
most imminent danger, drew him forth with such celerity 
that his shirt was stripped over his head and his skin 
severely lacerated. After he had adjusted his clothes, and 
loaded his gun with nine buck-shot, holding a torch in one 
hand and the musket in the other, he descended the second 
time. When he drew nearer than before, the wolf, assuming 
a still more fierce and terrible appearance, howling, rolling 
her eyes, snapping her teeth, and dropping her head between 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 131 

her legs, was evidently in the attitude, and on the point of 
springing at him. At the critical instant he levelled and 
fired at her head. Stunned with the shock, and suffocated 
with the smoke, he immediately found himself drawn out of 
the cave. But having refreshed himself, and permitted the 
smoke to dissipate, he went down the third time. Once 
more he came within sight of the wolf, who appearing very 
passive, he applied the torch to her nose, and perceiving her 
dead, he took hold of her ears, and then kicking the rope 
(still tied round his legs), the people above with no small 
exultation dragged them both out together. 

" You keep saying, ' Colonel Humphreys,' with a 
sort of sneer, papa," said Enos. " What is the 
matter with Colonel Humphreys." 

His father acknowledged the impropriety of his 
sneering, and said he would try to laugh. Colonel 
Humphreys was first an aid of Putnam's, when he 
probably had to see to his spelling, and afterward 
was an aid to Washington. Humphreys had a cer- 
tain literary turn, and is one of the early American 
authors, of the era after the Revolution. When Mr. 
Tait, Enos's father, spoke lightly of him, just what 
he meant was this: Humphreys had heard dear 
" Old Put" spin these yarns over and over again. 



132 BOYS HEROES. 

I believe that after General Putnam had had a stroke 
of paralysis, and was living at home like a caged lion, 
Colonel Humphreys went and visited him. Then 
Doctor Albigence Waldo kindly sent him anecdotes 
which " Old Put " had told him. From such mate- 
rials Colonel Humphreys made up the Life of Put- 
nam which he sent to the Society of Cincinnati 
of Connecticut, and which is the reservoir for the 
stories which have made him a boys' hero. 

When this was duly explained to Mrs. Tait and 
to Charlotte, they said that it was in this way they 
preferred to have history written. It made it much 
more entertaining. 

In 1755, when he was thirty-seven years old, 
Putnam took charge of a company of volunteers in 
the Connecticut contingent which joined the Eng- 
lish army against the French. It was in the cam- 
paigns which followed, that the adventures took 
place in which he saved the magazine of Fort Ed- 
ward, in which he and Durkee were so closely pur- 
sued, and tumbled together into the same place of 
refuge, and in which he found fourteen bullet-holes 
through his blanket. Modern criticism has shown 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 133 

that the blanket must have been folded when it 
was struck ; but the Tait children agreed that one 
bullet which had force enough to cut through an 
old-fashioned home-spun blanket fourteen times, 
was an uncomfortable neighbor. Either this or 
another bullet had struck Putnam's canteen, so 
that the fugitives had not a drop of liquor. 

When this was read from Colonel Humphreys's 
book, aunt Lois expressed her joy ; but Charlotte 
explained that the danger to poor Putnam's person 
was the same, whether the canteen contained New 
England rum or water. 

The war in Canada ended, virtually, by the fall 
of Quebec, and in 1761 Putnam was again at home. 
But he volunteered again in the Connecticut con- 
tingent which joined the English force against 
Havana. The arrival of the reinforcements from 
New England saved the English expedition, and 
the capture of Havana soon followed. Had it not 
been returned to Spain by the treaty of the next 
year, Cuba would probably now belong to the 
United States or Great Britain. 

And now he returned to his farmer's life for 



134 BOYS HEROES. 

twelve years. He took part in the protests against 
the use of stamped paper, which, in fact, kept Con- 
necticut free even from the presence of a sheet of 
it. He went once to Natchez, where land had 
been granted to the survivors of the Havana expe- 
dition, and he sent some laborers and tools there. 
Once and again he was in Boston, and met there 
Gage, Colonel Small and other officers with whom 
he had served in the French War. He also met 
Lord Percy. With these gentlemen he had friendly 
converse on the threatening state of affairs. Be- 
ing once, in particular, asked, " whether he did not 
seriously believe that a well-appointed British 
army of five thousand veterans could march through 
the whole continent of America ? " he replied 
briskly, " No doubt, if they behaved civilly, and 
paid well for everything they wanted ; but " — after 
a moment's pause added — " if they should attempt 
it in a hostile manner (though the American men 
were out of the question) the women, with their 
ladles and broomsticks, would knock them all on 
the head before they had got half way through." 
Meanwhile, at home, the militia were under reg- 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 135 

ular training for service, and such men as he were 
of course chosen commanders. The news of Lex- 
ington found him ploughing — as the picture shows 
which Enos Tait had seen — and without changing 
his clothes he set out for Boston. 

He was at once appointed a Major General by 
his own colony. As such he probably gave com- 
mands to the Connecticut regiments at Bunker 
Hill — where he was present. He was not the com- 
mander-in-chief, for the expedition was sent out by 
General Ward, who had a Massachusetts commis- 
sion, and had directed Colonel Prescott to fortify 
the hill, which he did. Putnam had meanwhile 
distinguished himself in a skirmish, in which an 
English vessel was burned at Hog-Island ; just 
beyond what is now East Boston. The news 
of this reached Philadelphia in time to quicken 
Congress in making him a Major-General on the 
Continental establishment. If Congress were to 
fight battles, it would not do to have a general 
from Connecticut, who owed no allegiance to a 
general from Massachusetts. On the very day that 
Putnam was trying to fortify Bunker Hill, to cover 



136 boys' heroes. 

the retreat of Prescott and his men who were on 
Breed's Hill, Congress made him a Major-General 
of the United States. It was in the same series of 
appointments in which Washington was named 
Commander-in-Chief. 

When the English left Boston, Putnam was sent 
to New York and assisted in the effort to defend 
that city. Just before the fatal battle of Long 
Island he was appointed to the command there. 
The failure of the American troops has been 
charged to his incompetency, but perhaps he had 
not fair time to make proper arrangements to re- 
pel the attack. After this he held the command, 
at one time of the posts above New York. It was 
when he was in this command that he made the 
Break-neck ride, and that he wrote the note, with 
" P. S. P. M. He is hanged," which so pleased 
Mrs. Tait for its brevity. 

But, in December, 1779, the fine old fellow was 
struck with paralysis which disabled him, and he 
resigned his command in the army. From that 
time till he died he lived in Pomfret telling his 
old stories and fighting his old battles. 



GENERAL LAFAYETTE. 

MR. FIELDS was fond of telling of his sur- 
prise when a gentleman who had had 
decent opportunities of education asked him one 
day if he had known Mr. Pope, the poet, person- 
ally. 

Mr. Fields would have needed to be one hun- 
dred and thirty years old to have seen the great 
poet — and as he was one of the youngest of men, 
till the day he died, he was much amused at the 
supposition. 

Mr. Scroop was as much amused when Lucy 
Flint asked him if he had known General Israel 
Putnam. The dear old Wolf-Killer died ninety- 
five years ago. But Lucy is not very strong in 
her chronology. And, when the others laughed at 
her — and Mr. Scroop tried to relieve her, by telj- 



138 boys' heroes. 

ing her that she had not been rude, as she feared 
— he said, " To comfort you, Lucy, I will tell you 
that I have seen the next hero on this list with 
these eyes. 

"It was Lafayette," said he. "Marie Jean 
Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de La- 
fayette. He has a long name, but in America, in 
the army, he was affectionately known as the Mar- 
quis. And many a man was christened ' Marquis,' 
in his honor, a hundred or more years ago." 

In Feudal times, and before, a man who was ap- 
pointed to guard the Marches or frontiers of a king- 
dom was called by a name which was eventually 
corrupted into Marquis — and Lafayette inherited 
this title. 

" Now he was a boys' hero indeed," said Mr. 
Scroop, " and a man's hero too." 

" And what is the difference ? " asked Will. 

" To name no other," said his father, " I 
think that boys would like, in general, to have 
their heroes start early in life — and to shew that 
affairs may pivot on people of sixteen or eighteen, 
as well as on old statesmen of seventy-five." 



GENERAL LAFAYETTE. 



39 



" As they did when that dreadful child — in 
that impossible Sunday-school story — ' pushed a 
pound ' in the fictitious launching, of a ship which 
was never built," said Lucy. 

" Do not be skeptical before your years, my 
dear. At any rate you will be satisfied with La- 
fayette — who was wounded in the battle of Bran- 
dywine when he was younger than some of the 
officers whom I have applauded in a school-drill 
in the Boston Theatre." 

Winifred pricked up her ears at this and be- 
gan to listen. " And were you at the battle too ? " 
she said. 

At this the others laughed heartily again, and 
explained to her that the battle was a hundred and 
eight years ago. To all which Winifred said that 
she did not care — that she was sure Mr. Scroop had 
said he had seen Lafayette — and she thought he 
might have carried him from the field. 

Mr. Scroop hastened to explain that he saw 
Lafayette the day when the cornerstone of Bunker 
Hill Monument was laid. " I was a little boy," 
he said, " three years and three months old. I had 



140 boys' heroes. 

had the scarlet fever, and was very weak. But 
when the procession with the hero, passed, on its 
way to the ceremony, it was wisely thought that I 
should be pleased to see the show, and I was 
carried to the window. The windows of the 
Parker House, opposite the Tremont House, look 
out on the same spot of the same street from the 
same side to-day. But then there was neither 
Parker House nor Tremont House." 

" And how did he look, uncle John, was he 
walking, or was he on horseback ? " 

"Or was he borne on the shoulders of men?" 

" Woe is me ! " cried uncle John, " I am a living 
instance of the worthlessness of tradition. These 
eyes have seen him. But I do not remember one 
least hair of his head. I do not even remember 
that I have remembered him. I do remember the 
green feathers in the hats of a militia company 
called the ' Rifle Rangers.' These pleased my 
young fancy more than the hero did. 

" Also I remember the badges with his picture 
printed upon them. Some were pink, some were 
blue, and some were white. And your aunt Mrs. 




ARTIIOLDI'S STATUE OF LAFAYETTE. 



GENERAL LAFAYETTE. 1 43 

Rhoades has one this day to show if what I say be 
true. 

"But these realities are all I remember." 

"How was he wounded when he was a boy, 
uncle John ? " 

"He was wounded in the leg, and he wrote his 
young wife a very pretty letter about it." 

" Why, was he married already ? " cried almost 
all the boys and girls, in amazement. " Pray how 
old was he when he was married ? " asked Robert, 
who was at that age when boys wonder how their 
fathers ever had courage to ask any girl to marry 
them. 

Uncle John explained again that so far as this 
went, all the asking was probably done by some- 
body else. The young marquis, who did not 
remember his own father, was born on the sixth of 
September, 1757. He was at eleven placed in a 
school in Paris, and while he was there, his mother 
died. The death of her father made the young 
marquis a rich man. He was married at the age 
of sixteen. He was on duty with his regiment, in 
the city of Metz, a garrison town in the east of 



144 BOYS HEROES. 

France, when the Duke of Gloucester, a younger 
brother of George the Third, came there on a visit. 
The young Lafayette met the young prince at a 
dinner party. The talk turned on the rebellion of 
the American colonies of England. What Lafay- 
ette heard then started him upon his career. It 
was the good fortune of the Duke of Gloucester to 
set in motion the most efficient ally America had 
in the Revolution. When Mr. Scroop told the 
children this story he said : 

" I do not at this moment remember anything 
else which the Duke of Gloucester ever did for his 
country." 

Nor do I. 

Lafayette was thoroughly good about coming to 
help the rebels. He fitted out a ship at his own 
cost, with such stores as he thought would be of 
value, and sailed in her. His boy-letters to his 
young wife on the voyage and afterwards are charm- 
ing. He calls her " Mon cher cceur," which means, 
I suppose, ' my sweetheart.' He sends pretty mes- 
sages to his baby, Henrietta, whom he was never 
to see again. 



GENERAL LAFAYETTE. 



145 



Since my last letter, I have been in the country which 
is the most disagreeable in the world, I mean the sea — for 
the sea is so sad, and I believe that the sea and I mutually 
sadden each other. 

And again he says, 

I am still on this sad plain, and that is certainly the most 
tedious thing which one can do. There is nothing tedious 
enough to compare with it. To console myself a little, I 
think of you and my friends. I think of the pleasure of 
seeing you again. How charming the moment when I shall 
come home. I shall come in suddenly to embrace you with- 
out being expected ; perhaps the children will be with you ? 
— I have arrived at last, my sweetheart, in very good health, 
and am now in the house of an American officer. By the 
greatest good fortune in the world, a French vessel is just 
ready to sail. Think how happy I am ! 

Here is his account of his wound at the battle 
of Brandywine. In the earlier letters he had ex- 
plained to his poor little wife that a general officer 
was really in no sort of danger. He had now to 
confess that in his very first battle he was wounded. 
I observe that he wrote to her immediately, but 
they would not let him write a long letter. "I 



146 BOYS HEROES. 

begin by telling you that I am well, because I 
must end by saying to you that we had a good bat- 
tle yesterday, and that we were not the strong- 
est." Is not that a pretty way to announce a de- 
feat ? 

Our Americans, after having held firmly for a long time, 
ended by being routed. When I was trying to rally them, 
the English gentlemen gave me, gratis, a musketshot which 
has wounded my leg a little ; but this is nothing, my sweet- 
heart. The ball has touched neither bone nor nerve, and I 
am let off by being laid on my back for some time, which 
makes me very cross. I hope, my sweetheart, that you will 
not let this trouble you, for it is really a reason for being less 
troubled since it will keep me out of action for some time, 
because I mean to take very good care of myself. Be well 
assured of this — my sweetheart. 

Afterwards, he says : 

Now you are the wife of an American general officer, so I 
must teach you your lesson. People will say to you, "your 
friends have been beaten ; " you will reply, " that is true, but 
between two armies, equal in number, in an open country, 
old soldiers always have the advantage over new ; besides 
we had the pleasure of killing a great many people, many 
more of the enemy than we lost ourselves." After this, they 



GENERAL LAFAYETTE. 1 47 

will say, " that is very fine, but Philadelphia is captured, the 
capital of America and the bulwark of liberty." You will 
reply, " you're fools ! Philadelphia is a sad place, of which the 
harbor had been closed already, and which the session of 
Congress had made famous. I don't know why; that is 
all there is about this famous town, which, in parenthesis, 
we will take back sooner or later." If after this they annoy 
you with questions, you will send them marching in terms 
which the Viscount de Noailles will teach you, for I am not 
going to take my time in teaching you politics. 

Now is not that a pretty letter for one sweet- 
heart to write to another ? He was twenty years 
old when he wrote it. He recovered from his 
wound, and he showed once and again, in very 
active campaigns, that he was a man of real mili- 
tary genius. But I am not going to tell you the 
story of his life, even briefly. To tell the truth, my 
wish has been to interest you all so much in his 
own way of telling it, that all of you who are sensi- 
ble and bright shall go to the Public Library, shall 
take out the French book, and try how well you 
can puzzle out the French in which his letters are 
written. That is the true way to read history — to 
read it in the original authorities. 



148 boys' heroes. 

Lafayette flew backward and forward over the 
ocean whenever he could best help America. He 
was in the thick of the fight at Yorktown", and in 
that brilliant night attack on the two redoubts 
which decided Cornwallis's fate, Lafayette led the 
American column. He entered his redoubt first, 
and was able to offer assistance to the French col- 
umn which had assailed the others. 

In the French Revolution he kept a level head, 
to borrow a convenient expression from modern 
slang — an expression so convenient that it will 
perhaps assert for itself a permanent place in lan- 
guage. In all the " might-have-beens " with which 
people try to tell how the French Revolution could 
have done its work, without its horrors, they have 
to imagine it going forward on the lines of Lafay- 
ette's wishes. He was at times the most popular 
of Frenchmen — and at other times was most de- 
tested by the frantic Revolutionists. After he had 
done his best for France, he had to leave France, 
and the Austrians were stupid enough to imprison 
him at Olmutz. Here is a most picturesque bit of 
history. Napoleon released him. But he and 



GENERAL LAFAYETTE. 1 49 

Napoleon never could work together. When Napo- 
leon fell — and when the Bourbons fell in 1830, 
Lafayette's chances to serve France came in again 

— and he used them like a man. 

But the government of the Restoration, the gov- 
ernment to which we owe it that men now speak 
of an obstinate fool as a " Bourbon," quarrelled 
with him — and really, though not in form, sent 
him into exile. It was then, in 1824 and 1825, he 
came to America. The country received him with 
an enthusiasm worthy of itself and of France. 
The country did not know before how enthusiastic 
it could be. It was on this visit that he laid the 
corner-stone of the monument. 

As you read history you will find that some men 
laugh at Lafayette. Carlyle, quoting Mirabeau, 
calls him " Grandison Cromwell Lafayette," which 
means that he was a revolutionist who made bows, 
and relied on etiquette. But if you will read care- 
fully you will come out assured that he was no fool 

— that he was, as I have said, a man of real mili- 
tary genius — and, which is much better, you will 
believe him an upright and conscientious man. 



XL 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 



IT was with some hesitation that we placed Na- 
poleon Bonaparte, the first emperor of that 
name, on our list of heroes. To tell the truth, I 
do not think he will be on such a list — a list of 
boys' heroes — in the year 1985. Now a hero who 
is not permanently or always a hero, is only a hero 
of the second class. 

I think if any intelligent person had made a list 
of boys' heroes in the year 1760, it would certainly 
have included Frederic of Prussia — if the list had 
been made for American boys or English boys. 
He was a very successful soldier. He had been a 
very successful administrator. He had made a 
small kingdom into a very powerful one. Any 
young man who could, sought to obtain some post 
in his army. The young men, of whose private 
150 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 151 

lives I know anything, in America at that time, 
eagerly studied what they could find of his writing 
and of Frederic's life. 

But I am equally certain that he would be put 
on no list of boys' heroes now. Mr. Carlyle has 
put him on his list of heroes — by which he means 
persons who by their power of accomplishment, 
have lifted their heads above the current of their 
time. But Mr. Carlyle cannot make people believe 
that Frederic has a place in the lasting regard of 
men. I do not myself think that Frederic has left 
anything very important as his gift to the world. 
It has been said that his best gift to Germany was 
the introduction of the potato — and I think that 
would have come in without him. 

Now I suppose that the fame of Napoleon the 
First is declining with every year, as that of Frederic 
the Great has declined. Napoleon was a very skil- 
ful person in this very important business of fight- 
ing. He could live with very little sleep. He had 
a very hard heart. He cared for nobody but him- 
self. He understood the business of war wonder- 
fully well, By instinct, almost, he brought to act 



152 ROYS HEROES. 

on one point the largest possible number of men, 
and almost always crushed his enemy in doing so. 
When a nation is at war these are great gifts. 
And, by such means, Napoleon made himself 
Emperor of France, and kept himself in that posi- 
tion for eleven years. 

But these are not gifts which through all ages 
command the regard and admiration of men. 
Other men appear who have the same gifts. The 
circumstances go by which made those gifts of 
value. Thus it would be very hard for me to per- 
suade any boy or girl that it is important now to 
any one, that Napoleon succeeded in the battle of 
Borodino in the year 1812. But, in the battle of 
Borodino seventy or eighty thousand men were 
killed or wounded — and no man can be justified in 
compelling such loss of life but by some great exi- 
gency. If the objects of a man's life are transitory, 
and the methods by which he gained them are 
transitory, I think his fame will not be eternal or 
the regard which men have for him. 

In truth there are only three realities in life 
which are eternal. They are Faith and Hope and 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 153 

Love. Napoleon had neither of these. For I do 
not think that the confidence he had in his own 
star is fairly to be called Hope. 

Still we have put Napoleon the First, though 
rather doubtfully, upon our list of "boys' heroes," 
because every one likes to read about him, and, in 
our time, ought to read about him. In other times 
I think people will read about him as little as they 
now read about Charles the Bold. He lived in a 
country which is very enthusiastic about military 
success. He created a school of admirers who re- 
garded military success as the greatest success of 
all. And a library of the Memoirs of Napoleon — 
or books bearing upon his history — is one of the 
most entertaining collection of books which you 
can find. There are such libraries. They number 
many thousands of volumes. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 
1769. It seems to me a little curious that the 
celebration of the hundredth anniversary of his 
birth was not more distinguished by public cel- 
ebration. It has been observed with interest 
that Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wei- 



154 BOYS HEROES. 

lington, who met Napoleon in battle at Waterloo, 
was born in the same year. He was three months 
and fifteen days older than Napoleon. 

Napoleon, in early life, always spelt his name 
Buonaparte — with a u in the first syllable. He 
changed the spelling to Bonaparte without a u, all 
of a sudden. It is said that up to a certain day all 
the autographs have the letter ?/, that on that day 
there is one letter with it, and another without 
it, and that always afterwards he wrote it with o 
alone. I suppose that after he became a French 
ruler he did not care to use spelling which is dis- 
tinctly Italian. He was born in Corsica, which 
was ceded to the crown of France in June, 1768. 
He was therefore born a subject of Louis the Six- 
teenth. Had he been born sixteen months before 
he would have been born a citizen of the Republic 
of Genoa, which held Corsica till its cession to 
France. 

His father was a well-educated man, who was of 
the patriot party, as it was called, of Paoli, a person 
a good deal heard of in those days. It was after- 
wards Napoleon's duty when he was only a captain 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 1 55 

of artillery to serve against Paoli. When he was 
a little boy, only ten years old, he was sent to the 
military school at Brienne, and here he remained 
what was called a "king's pensioner" until he was 
in his sixteenth year. Observe that when he was 
a schoolboy in this school the boys heard of La- 
fayette's and Rochambeau's successes with French 
troops in America. 

Here is his own account of his boyhood : 

In my infancy I was extremely headstrong ; nothing over- 
awed me, nothing disconcerted me. I was quarrelsome, mis- 
chievous ; I was afraid of nobody ; I beat one, I scratched 
another ; I made myself formidable to the whole family. 
My brother Joseph was the one with whom I was oftenest 
embroiled ; he was beaten, bitten, abused ; I went to com- 
plain before he had time to recover from his confusion. I 
had need to be on the alert ; our mother would have re- 
pressed my warlike humor, she would not have put up with 
my caprices. Her tenderness was joined with severity; she 
punished, rewarded, all alike ; the good, the bad, nothing 
escaped her. My father, a man of sense, but too fond of 
pleasure to pay much attention to our infancy, sometimes 
attempted to excuse our faults. " Let them alone," she said ; 
"it is not your business. It is I who must look after 
them." 



156 boys' heroes. 

Napoleon also tells this story of himself : 

I recollect a mischance which befel me in this way, and 
the punishment which was inflicted on me. We had some 
fig-trees in a vineyard ; we used to climb them ; we might 
meet with a fall and accidents ; she forbade us to go 
near them without her knowledge. This prohibition gave 
me a good deal of uneasiness : but it had been pronounced, 
and I attended to it. One day, however, when I was idle, 
and at a loss for something to do, I took it in my head to 
long for some of these figs. They were ripe ; no one saw 
me, or could know anything of the matter : I made my escape, 
ran to the tree, and gathered the whole. My appetite being 
satisfied, I was providing for the future by filling my pockets, 
when an unlucky vineyard-keeper came in sight. I was half- 
dead with fear, and remained fixed on the branch of the tree, 
where he had surprised me. He wished to seize and conduct 
me before my mother. Despair rendered me eloquent ; I 
represented my distress, undertook to keep away from the 
figs in future, was prodigal of assurances, and he seemed 
satisfied. I congratulated myself on having come off so well, 
and fancied that the adventure would not transpire ; but 
the traitor told all. The next day Signora Letitia wanted 
me to go and gather some figs. I had not left any, there 
were none to be found : the keeper came, great reproaches 
followed, and an exposure; the culprit had to expiate his 
fault. 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 1 57 

Here is his account of his first journey from 
home : 

I still remember the tears she shed when I quitted Corsica. 
That is now forty years ago. You were not then born : I 
was young, and did not foresee the glory that awaited me, 
still less that we should find ourselves here together*; but 
destiny is unchangeable : one must obey one's star. Mine 
was to run through the extremes of life ; and I set out to 
fulfil the task assigned me. My father repaired to Versailles, 
whither he had been deputed by the Corsican noblesse. I 
accompanied him ; we passed through Tuscany — I saw 
Florence and the Grand Duke. We at length reached Paris 
— we had been recommended to the Queen. My father was 
well received, feasted. I entered the school at Brienne ; I 
was delighted. My head began to ferment ; I wanted to 
learn, to know, to distinguish myself — I devoured the books 
that came in my way. Presently there was no talk in the 
school except about me. I was admired by some, envied by 
others ; I felt conscious of my strength and enjoyed my 
superiority. 

It was, of course, very curious in after times, 
to see what Napoleon's teacher thought of him. 
The following report was discovered, and made 
public : 

* At St. Helena. 



158 boys' heroes. 

State of the king's scholars eligible from their age to enter 
into the service or to pass to the school at Paris ; to wit M. 
de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born the 15th of August, 1769, 
in height 4 feet, 10 inches, 10 lines (5 feet 6 1-2 inches Eng- 
lish) has finished his fourth season ; of a good constitution, 
health excellent ; character mild, honest, and grateful ; con- 
duct exemplary ; has always distinguished himself by his 
application to the mathematics ; understands history and 
geography tolerably well ; is indifferently skilled in merely 
ornamental studies, or in Latin, in which he has only finished 
his fourth course ; would make an excellent sailor ; deserves 
to be passed on to the school at Paris. 

His old master Leguille, professor of history at 
Paris, boasted, that in a list of the different schol- 
ars, he had predicted his pupil's subsequent career. 
In fact, to the name of Buonaparte the following 
note is added : " A Corsican by birth and charac- 
ter — he will do something great, if circumstances 
favor him." Monge was his instructor in geome- 
try, who also entertained a high opinion of him. 

M. Bauer, his German master, was the only one 
who saw nothing in him, and was surprised at 
being told he was undergoing his examination for 
the artillery. 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 



59 



Napoleon received his first commission in the 
French army when he was only sixteen years old. 
He was then appointed a second lieutenant of artil- 
lery. Observe that Lafayette was commissioned at 
the same age. Napoleon, you see, served under the 
Monarchy — when Louis the Sixteenth was still 
one of the most popular of kings. Not long after 
he was commissioned, he competed for a prize 
offered by the Academy of Lyons, and he won it. 
The subject was one prepared by the Abbe' Ray- 
nal: "What are the principles and institutions, by 
application of which mankind can be raised to the 
highest pitch of happiness." Few men. have had 
such a chance to try experiments in that direction 
as he had in his after-life. 

The conflict between the King and the People was 
steadily approaching. It is said that he said, in 
the discussions among the officers of his regiment, 
" Were I a general officer I would have held by 
the king : being a subaltern I join the Patriots." 
All such stories, however, are to be cautiously re- 
ceived. It is certain that he did take the Patriot 
side. In 1792, when he was twenty-three, he be- 



iOO BOYS HEROES. 

came a captain ; it was in the next year that he 
served in Corsica. The French were not success- 
ful there, the army was withdrawn, and his mother, 
his brother and sisters crossed to Marseilles. It is 
said that they were quite poor until Napoleon was 
far enough advanced in his career to relieve them. 

In the south of France, there had been more 
than one district where the people, or their local 
leaders, had not supported with enthusiasm the 
violent proceedings of the Revolutionary Conven- 
tion, and had looked with particular horror on the 
imprisonment of the king. The seaport of Toulon, 
which was a Royal arsenal, had declared for the 
King and the Constitution of 1789, and had asked 
the assistance of the English and Spanish Squad- 
rons which were cruising on the coast. This assist- 
ance was given ; and a garrison made up of Eng- 
lishmen, Spaniards, Neapolitans and Sardinians 
was thrown hastily into the city, which thus became 
— though a French city — a hostile town in France. 
The Convention had to besiege it and to take 
it. 

The Convention, at the outset, managed its mil- 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. i6l 

itary affairs very badly, having the wretched custom 
of sending what was called a Committee of Public 
Safety to watch and overawe the General. Lord 
Mulgrave, an Englishman, held command of the 
motley garrison within. Things dragged along, 
with little success for the French for some time, 
when Napoleon Buonaparte, who was then only a 
lieutenant-colonel of artillery, was appointed com- 
mander of the artillery in the siege. So soon as 
he arrived, he found that things were wretchedly 
mismanaged. More than once he had to differ 
from the civilians who were sent down to watch 
him and the siege. In a sally which the English 
made against a French outwork, Napoleon received 
a bayonet wound ; and O'Hara, the English com- 
mander, was wounded and taken prisoner. This is 
the same O'Hara who gave up his sword to Wash- 
ington at Yorktown, when Lord Cornwall is was too 
ill " in his tent " to make this sign of surrender. 
Immediately after this success, Napoleon opened 
a heavy fire on a post which the English called 
Fort Mulgrave and the French Little Gibraltar. 
He weakened it so that a French column was able 



1 62 BOYS' HEROES." 

to take it by storm. After this severe loss the 
allied troops withdrew. 

The notes which the committees of Paris found 
in the office of the artillery department, respecting 
Napoleon, first called their attention to his conduct 
at the siege of Toulon. They saw that, in spite of 
his youth and the inferiority of his rank, as soon as 
he appeared there, he was master. This was the 
natural effect of the ascendency of knowledge, ac- 
tivity, and energy, over ignorance and confusion. 
He was, in fact, the conqueror of Toulon, and yet 
he is scarcely named in the official dispatches. 

Still, after such success, it was a year or two be- 
fore his military genius had any fair chance given 
to it. It was not till the famous day which Carlyle 
calls the day of the " Whiff of Grape Shot," that 
he established himself as one of the great Leaders 
of the French people. On that day, October 4, 
1795, he was but twenty-six years old. From that 
time for twenty years he was the most important 
man who was in any way connected with France 
or her government. 

I have only tried to give a sketch of his life 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 163 

while he was a young man. You will all see that in 
those days he showed most of the characteristics 
which gave him distinction afterwards. I think he 
also showed the limitations, which make it certain 
that he can never be counted among the number 
who are acknowledged to be the first of men. 



XII. 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 



WHEN, in the beginning of this series, I 
and a loyal body of friends selected the 
group of heroes whose history the reader has fol- 
lowed, it was agreed by those high contracting 
parties that the twelfth hero should be invented 
by me. 

This new hero is to combine all the excellencies 
of the other twelve and none of their vices. He is 
to be as gentlemanly as Arthur, and Richard, and 
Bayard, and Robinson, and Lafayette. He is to 
be as tender but not as unfortunate as Hector. 
He is to be as brave as Horatius and Alexander, 
and as successful as Napoleon and Hannibal were 
in their early days. 

Beside this his life shall have good separate 

anecdotes like Old Put's. I wish I could add that, 

164 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 165 

like Old Put, he was to have a good biographer. 

It has also been agreed that he is to be a hero 
of our time, so that any boy who reads, may go and 
do likewise. 

He is not to be brought up in riches, far less in 
abject poverty; he is to be an American, and to 
have his early education in that middle state of life 
to which Robinson Crusoe was born, and which 
Agur prayed for. Like most young Americans he 
is to " paddle his own canoe " from early years. 

As for name — we doubted a good deal, seeing 
we are making him up entirely. For if we give 
him a name of the people, there will be twenty 
John Fishers, or George Bacons, or William Fos- 
ters who will read this very biography, and will 
think the story is written about them. Why, there 
are three E. E. Hales now on the catalogue of 
Harvard College, a fourth keeps a shop for dogs in 
Fulton street, and a fifth runs an express wagon in 
New Hampshire. Suppose we took that name for 
the Hero's name, they might all think the parable 
was written of them. Still it is very hard to write 
long of a man who has no name. I know people 



1 66 boys' heroes. 

who begin a story by saying, " I have a friend, who 
made us a visit, and went to see a friend, who lives 
in Friend street. My friend's friend said to my 
friend that a friend of hers called on a friend " — 
and so on and so on. But this always confuses 
me, for I am slow of understanding. In sympathy 
with readers who resemble me, it has been deter- 
mined that our Hero shall have a Name. 

Our proposal was to select twenty-four unusual 
surnames from the Directory, and as many christian 
names from the list at the end of the dictionary, 
and to draw the two names by lot from these. 
Proceeding on this line, with some forcing, we came 
upon " Rufus Mulhall," for our Hero. But every 
one disliked this. He was then altered to Ralph 
Mulhall. Then it proved that Mulhall was not an 
old New England name, and that seemed desirable. 
So we changed him to Ralph Allestree, having 
found Allestree in Lechford. 

Ralph Allestree was seventeen years old when 
the war of the rebellion broke out. They rejected 
him because he was too young, when the volunteers 
appeared in Boston for the First Massachusetts 



RALPH ALLESTREE. l6j 

Regiment. Ralph's next best chance was to go on 
a farm in Vermont where his uncle lived and raised 
horses. It was here that he learned everything 
about a horse which is worth knowing, and became 
literally, as much of a " chevalier''' as Bayard. But it 
was not till he was nineteen that he could persuade 
any surgeon to pass him. Then he succeeded in 
exactly what he wanted. He was sworn in as a 
private in the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, and 
from the beginning had the pleasure of serving 
under that White Knight of modern chivalry, 
Francis Washburn of High Bridge. 

This is the story of High Bridge. When Lee 
was in full retreat in Virginia, hoping, if possible, 
to join Johnston in North Carolina, Ord was lead- 
ing the pursuit of Grant's army, and in those criti- 
cal hours made one of the great marches of modern 
history. At last he had to stop. But before day- 
light on April 6, 1865, he sent forward from Berks- 
ville two small regiments of infantry and his own 
headquarters escort of cavalry, under Colonel Wash- 
burn's command, to burn High Bridge. He after- 
wards sent Theodore Read, his chief-of-staff, to 



1 68 boys' heroes. 

command the little party. They were all within 
two miles of the river when General Lee's cavalry, 
in advance of his whole army, overtook them. 

Read drew up his eighty horse and five hundred infantry, 
rode along the front of his ranks, inspired the men with his 
own valor, and began the battle with an army in his front. 
Charge after charge was made by the chivalrous Washburn, 
and at last not an officer of that cavalry party was left un- 
wounded to lead the men ; and not until then did they sur- 
render. But the stubborn fight in his front led Lee to believe 
that a heavy force had struck the head of his column. He 
ordered a halt — and this whole portion of his army began 
entrenching ; so that the rear-guard and wagon train were 
delayed in their march, and this gave time for Sheridan to 
come up with the flying column on the Deatonsville road.* 

You see that that half-day in which those fine 
fellows checked an army was the end of the war. 
Read and Washburn, and Washburn's officers did 
not die in vain. Lee's retreat was checked long 
enough, and on the next day the notes passed 
between Grant and Lee which resulted in the great 
surrender. 

*From "Badeau's Life of Grant." 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 1 69 

The three hundred men who died at Thermopylae 
scarcely stopped Xerxes' army for a day. 

The men who fought at High Bridge gave peace 
to the country after four years of war. They were 
prisoners for less than forty-eight hours. They 
were never exchanged — for when those forty-eight 
hours were over the war was done. 

Yes, it was hard enough for these fine fellows to 
join in the triumphs of victory. They were in the 
great " March Past," when for a day the united 
armies of Sherman and of Grant poured by the 
White House and saluted Abraham Lincoln — in 
token that War was over. But not a man of them 
could forget, all through the honors of that day, 
those brave friends whose death had bought that 
rejoicing. But, after this great day of jubilee, regi- 
ment after regiment was discharged and they could 
all hurry home. 

Home! It was Ralph's first day at home for 
two years. And it would not be quite home, until 
his father came too. But they now counted it only 
in weeks till the Alert should arrive — the little 
cruiser which he commanded. 



x 7° 

And the Alert never came. I do not know, and 
no man knows in what sea — deep down, above the 
bottom and below the surface — what is left of the 
Alert is tossing. And I do not know, and no man 
knows, where are the bodies of Ralph's father, and 
of the brave men whom he commanded. From 
that day to this day Ralph has done to his mother 
and his brothers and his sisters what his father 
would have done if — if the Alert had come home. 

It was eight months before the Navy people 
gave her up. Then they sent a great letter to Mrs. 
Allestree and said they had given up the Alert, and 
another great letter came with an order for the 
administrator of Captain Allestree's estate to sign 
— on presentation of which his back pay and his 
prize money would be paid, and his account would 
be closed. 

" I shall leave it to you, Ralph," said his mother. 
" You have never decided wrong." 

" I knew you would say so, mother. You said 
so when I joined the Fourth. And surely all came 
out well then. I will tell you what I will do. I 
will be a mining engineer. There is this twelve 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 171 

hundred dollars in the will, left for my education. 
Mr. Fletcher says it must go for that, anyway. I 
will go to Paris first, to the School of Mines. I will 
go to Freyburg next, if that is the right thing to 
do. I will make the money last three years. And 
when I come home, I will know enough " — 

" To confound and confuse your poor old 
mother.'' 

" To make my pretty little mother as proud as a 
peacock of her boy — and better than that " — 

" To change lead into gold," said his mother. 

" No ! better than that. I will do what any 
American hero should do — I will be leader and 
guide among the Founders of States." 

" Dear Ralph," said his mother, as she kissed 
him, "you are your father over again. But he 
never founded so much as a bowling-alley. Ralph, 
let it be as you say." 

So Ralph went to Paris. And afterward he went 
to Freyburg, which proved to be the best thing. 
And he made the money last more than three years. 
For he was not ashamed of his clothes. He did not 
need to smoke, he drank water and milk and tea 



172 boys' heroes. 

and coffee, and never touched liquor. If he trav- 
elled, it was on foot. If he bought books, it was 
in the People's editions. " I am a * Child of the 
Public,' " Ralph said almost fiercely, for though he 
was never vain, he was proud as Bayard. He was 
nearly four years older, when he came home in the 
steerage. He bought a silk dress for his mother 
with the sixty dollars he saved by buying a steerage 
passage. 

And if you want to know more of him, you must 
go to the State of Franklin, and spend three months 
at the capital when the legislature is in session. 
I forget about the capital of Franklin, but I believe 
its name is to be changed to Washburn. Anyway, 
if you will go to the Sierra Hotel, or the Hotel 
Sierra there, if you will hire a room for three months, 
and sit every evening among the loafers, and drum- 
mers, the other travellers, the legislators, and the 
miners who are smoking there, you may hear stories 
for all that time of Ralph Allestree, or the " Boss," 
as they will call him. These stories will show that 
even while he was as young as Lafayette at Brandy- 
wine, or Alexander at Issus, he was as chivalrous 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 



173 



as Richard and as brave as Horatius. They will 
show that he is as kind to his inferiors as Robinson 
Crusoe, more spotless than Bayard, and as true a 
gentleman as Hector. He has been as much loved 
by his companions as King Arthur, and as success- 
ful as Hannibal and Napoleon. And if I only had 
the tact of Colonel Humphreys in picking out anec- 
dotes, you would say that Ralph Allestree had been 
as fortunate in his biography as Old Put was. 

If you ever write a biography, I advise you to 
write it as Plutarch wrote his. Plutarch was a 
fool, but in spite of this — nay, I have sometimes 
thought because of this — he wrote the most charm- 
ing biographies which were ever written. 

He does not trouble you with dates or precise 
versifications. Thus, he does not tell you that 
Coriolanus was born upon the third Kalend of Jan- 
uary, but that somebody else thinks it was on the 
twelfth. You do not care a straw — no, nor the 
finest filament of a straw, which day he was born. 
Nor does anybody else in the wide world or the 
wider heaven. Instead of such rigmarole Plutarch 
tells you a string of entertaining stories. Some of 



174 boys' heroes. 

them when he wrote, had survived the wreck of 
time for many centuries. And, from these stories, 
you know a great deal more of the man than you 
would know by any certainty that he was born at 
the village of Veii and not at the village of Peii, or 
that he was inoculated by Doctor Fabius and not 
by Doctor Labius, if indeed there had been any 
doctors or any inoculation in those days. I have 
said this before, but I say it again. We will tell 
our story in Plutarch's way — for it is undoubtedly 
the best way. 

One day Ralph was voyaging on Lake Superior. 
They were out of sight of land, for there was the 
very slightest haze on the horizon. The waves of 
fresh water are different from those of salt water, 
but this day there was nothing which you would 
call a wave, only long swells which furrowed the 
lake. These were the leavings of a long northwest 
storm. Ralph was talking with some friends on 
the upper deck when they heard an agonized 
scream from a woman forward. Some instinct told 
him what was the matter. He flung into the lake 
the stool on which he was sitting, ran at full speed 
to the very stern of the boat and without pausing 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 



175 



an instant sprang head-foremost into the white 
foaming trail of the vessel. She was sailing ten 
or fifteen miles an hour. That means, say twelve 
hundred feet in a minute, and that means twenty- 
feet in a second. The second he had saved by his 
presence of mind, saved the life of the little Ger- 
man boy who had fallen into the water. F jy the 
boy rose, and Ralph rose not twenty feet from each 
other, and Ralph saw him. The boy went down 
slowly, but Ralph went after him and clutched him. 
In two seconds more the child was squalling lus- 
tily, but Ralph was working steadily towards the 
floating stool, which was not far away. In less 
than five minutes a boat from the steamer was 
feeling its course back by the track of white foam, 
and at the end of five minutes Ralph and the little 
German and the stool were hauled in. Now all 
this would have been madness had he not been 
sure that the stool would float, or had he lost one 
second of time. But, in fact, it was not madness. 
It was prudence and heroism together. The story 
of that promptness went with Ralph wherever he 
went, and did something toward forming the confl- 



176 boys' heroes. 

dence with which people were apt to look at him 
even when he was very young. 

Another of his swimming feats happened at the 
mines. Some " tender feet " had just come in to 
the settlement. Ralph met the father of the fam- 
ily, welcomed him cordially, and asked for his 
children. 

" I told them they might go and bathe," said the 
father. " They need it enough after our long 
journey." 

" Bathe ! " cried Ralph, starting from his high 
desk, and rushing for a lasso which hung over the 
door. " Have they gone to the lake ? " And when 
the frightened father said they had, Ralph called 
both his clerks and old Tristram and ran at five- 
forty speed over the half-mile from his office to the 
lakeside. 

It was just as he had feared. Into the marble 
of the shore the water of the lake had cut in cu- 
rious white clefts. They were so like the bath-tubs 
of giants that people called them " the Baths." 

The three children had been tempted, as Ralph 
knew they would be, to bathe in the Baths. They 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 177 

could all swim ; they had taken hold of hands and 
then leaped in together. And so, when Ralph 
arrived, the three children were freezing to death 
in this cruel water. For the walls of the cleft were 
so smooth with the washing of ages that neither 
hands nor feet could get a hold. The water was 
not quite as cold as ice, but it was not much 
warmer. 

The children were swimming still, but even now 
Hagar could hardly hold up little Polly. 

" Never fear ! never fear ! " cried Ralph, " it is 
all right. Keep her up just half a minute more." 
And he slipped the loop of the lasso round his own 
waist. The instant old Tristam came up, he took 
the other end of the rope, and Ralph went into 
the water. He could hold up Polly now, and in a 
minute more all three of the children were passed 
out and up to the men lying on their stomachs and 
reaching down from the rock above. 

They fairly ran the children home. They poured 
brandy into the inside and rubbed them with horse- 
hair mittens on the outside, and they were all saved. 

" I have known that place to be the most dan- 



178 boys' heroes. 

gerous hole in America, since I went into it my- 
self," said Ralph. 

One awful day in midwinter, when they had 
fairly given up the office because it was so cold, 
and all the clerks and other outdoor people had 
gathered, with kerosene lamps, in a sort of Jury 
work-room they had made in an old shaft, Tristam 
came in, wild with excitement, with a letter. It 
was dirty and wet, but still legible, if, by good luck, 
Tristam could have read. But, by ill luck, Tristam 
could not read. He had found the letter tied with 
a bit of old crape round the neck of a dog who had 
scratched and howled at the half-blocked door of 
Tristam's shanty. Tristam had been nursing a 
sprained ankle there. 

" The wettest, dirtiest, meanest cub you ever did 
see," said Tristam in explanation. " But she had 
this rag round her neck 'n' I knew that meant sun- 
thin'. 'N' I brought it down right away for some 
of you ' tender feet ' to read." 

For, to Tristam's view, all men and women who 
could remember any point east of Pike's Peak were 
"tender feet." 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 1 79 

Ralph tore open the letter. 

Flynn's house is burnt and Junio's Junio is badly burnt 
and Flynn is ded The children and Junio and all the wim- 
men is in my shanty The snow is all over us I shall 
put the dog through the roof Sall Watkins. 

Ralph read it twice to the group. 

" Flynn was drunk," said he, " and so was Junio, 
and so was Sail." 

Meanwhile, he kicked off his slippers which he 
was wearing for comfort, and pulled on his boots. 
As he did so, he said, " Who will go with me ? " 
without looking from the ground. 

" In course I will," said old Tristam. 

" In course you will not, with that foot of yours," 
replied Ralph. " I should be carrying you on my 
back before we had gone ten rods." 

" I'll go," said Nahum Spalding, who was putting 
on his fur coat already, his boots were on. 

Observe, that the wind was blowing smartly from 
the northwest, that the thermometer was twenty- 
six degrees below zero, that the depth of the snow 
varied from twenty feet in the drifts to nothing on 
the ridges, and that Flynn's was eleven miles 



180 boys' heroes. 

away — a nest of wretched drunkards, as worthless 
as could be found on this round ball. 

Neither of the other men said a word. But, as 
Ralph was fastening his snow shoes, a Canadian 
whom they called LeBosse, said, half ashamed, that 
he did go once on a tramp to help a fellow Mason, 
and that when he arrived, the people were all 
blind drunk and needed no help at all. 

" Yer would go ef the woman wuz a man and 
could make the sign of distress," said Tristam, in 
a quiet rage. 

And at this taunt, LeBosse girded on his snow 
shoes, and went too. 

They carried on the sled two yards of canvas 
rolled on two sticks, with which to make shelter 
from the wind, two spades, a little jug of whiskey, 
and some hard bread. 

No ! There is not room enough here to tell of 
their false start, of their going up the creek four 
miles, and having to come down because there was 
no chance to cross it, till they were within a mile 
of their starting place, to tell how LeBosse sulked 
and turned back ; how the others lost their way, 



RALPH ALLESTREE. l8l 

and at nightfall had not found Flynn's. How the 
wind failed, but the glass went down — or would, 
had there been any ; how, at sunrise — late quarter 
to eight — they found they were at the Devil's Gap, 
how Nahum began to talk wild here and was " clean 
gone," how Ralph packed him away — knowing he 
would sleep — in a cleft in the Devil's Den, and 
fastened him in with two big bowlders ; how then 
Ralph went on alone, and at three in the afternoon 
— twenty-nine hours after he started — hailed the 
party at Flynn's. 

There has not been any smoke. He was afraid 
they were dead. No ! Junio was dying. Sal was 
asleep in a drunken sleep, and all five of the chil- 
dren, covered up by one bear skin, by the care of 
Matildy, the biggest of them, were asleep also. 
Sal had upset the jug of whiskey which contained 
every particle of stimulant in the house. A little 
water leaked in from the roof. There was not a 
crumb of food. 

None of those children died, and Sal Watkins 
never touched whiskey again. Three years after 
she married a very decent man named Ogiltree, 



1 82 boys' heroes. 

who saw her at Fitch. She told him her whole 
story. And she has made him a very good wife. 
Ralph had organzied his first mine on the Back 
to Back system. This means that the capitalists, 
who lived in Chicago and New York, had one third 
of the profit, the undertakers had one third — they 
were himself and a smelter named Geniose, and 

another man who understood the market named 
Gulliver, and the workmen had one third. All 
wages were, by agreement, fixed at the lowest rates 
at which men could live, and everybody looked to 
the profits of the mine for his real compensation. 
The thing worked so well at the Washburn, that 
when they opened the Cinnabar they worked on 
the same system, and they did the same at the 
Jasper afterwards. Mining is like everything else 
in life. It is the first step which costs. They had 
pulled well through the worst first steps at the 
Washburn and the Cinnabar, when the whole com- 
munity at the Washburn was dismayed, first by 
the suspicion and then by the certainty that some 
very grand people from New York who were stay- 
ing at the Sierra House, and were spying out the 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 183 

works had come to buy the Boss off. They had 
offered him, it was said, twenty thousand dollars 
a year and a share in their mines if he would come 
and take the charge of the Aladdin in Montana. 
Then one of them, who was a little drunk, had let 
out the fact that because twenty thousand dollars 
would not do, thirty thousand dollars should. Every 
word of which, so far as it said that such offers had 
been made, was true. And the offers were made 
by substantial people, who could and would do what 
they promised. 

Now this did not mean death to the Washburn 
works or the Cinnabar. They were, in both cases, 
well established. The hands liked the bosses and 
the bosses liked the hands. The capitalists under- 
stood their part — that they were to be content 
with their dividends and were not to interfere. If 
Ralph left, still the mines would go on. 

And Ralph was not, at that time, earning any- 
thing like the smallest amount named in this mag- 
nificent offer — which his skill, courage, and execu- 
tive ability had well deserved. He was not earn- 
ing a quarter part of twenty thousand dollars. 



184 boys' heroes. 

But he said that he considered himself bound to 
loyal men who had trusted him with money, and to 
his loyal partners, the workmen, who had come in 
to a new plan proposed by him, of dividing profits. 
Nothing had been said in writing which should 
bind him to stay with them. But he believed that 
he understood the business better than any one 
else did, and that he could carry it on better. He 
certainly should be disappointed, and should think 
he was harshly treated, if all his workmen left him 
together and went off to the Aladdin or to Alaska. 
He was but one and they were seven hundred. 
But as things were, he was, perhaps, as necessary 
to the Washburn, as they were. 

So he staid at the Washburn and the New York 
gentlemen looked further for an agent. 

But that sort of loyalty, of man to man, helped 
the Washburn so much that it is long since that 
the Washburn people bought out the Aladdin and 
that is now run on the Back-to-Back system. 

There were two or three wretched camps of 
Indians near Washburn, and one near Cinnabar. 
What the poor creatures were originally I do not 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 185 

know — Snakes, Crows, Black-feet, Diggers or what. 
They were in a fair way of all going to the happy 
hunting-grounds when Ralph appeared on the 
scene. Old Tristam and most of the people he 
had to do with, would have told you that a dead 
Indian was the only good Indian — and, so far as 
they had any " Lord," would have thanked the 
Lord, had they heard that there was small-pox in 
either of the camps. 

Ralph never smoked a pipe of peace with these 
wretches. One or another of them would come 
into the town to sell venison, or other game, and 
it was certain that they got no bad whiskey there. 
Ralph rode out one day to see them. He pro- 
duced some salve for two of their ponies which 
had some disorder. He persuaded two of the boys 
to take a letter for him across to the Yellowstone 
Reservation, and when they came back — it was 
only three or four hundred miles in all — he paid 
them well. Then he persuaded them and another 
to be his regular scouts and hunters, and pleased 
their fancy by a little bit of uniform and gold lace. 
He coaxed Tubal, one of his blacksmiths, to show 



i86 boys' heroes. 

the boys how to handle tools ; first nothing but a 
tinker's — so that they could mend a tin pail, 
but in the end they could make a tin pail or 
cut an old one to pieces and make it into mugs. 
The Indian girls were never unwilling to earn 
finery or frocks, by doing such work either in the 
garden or in the kitchen, as they were set to. The 
next step was when the real chief of the gang — for 
it was not a tribe — were recognized as official 
hunters, and had their strips of gold lace, and a 
regular science of ammunition. Finally there was 
a raising, one clay, of a frame house, and a state 
wedding, when the chief of the scouts married the 
prettiest girl in the clan. Of all which, the secret 
was, that the Red-skins were kept from whiskey, 
that each man who chose had land of his own, that 
they were kept in the open air, that no one learned 
anything on compulsion, and that they had some 
one a little in advance of them to think for them 
till they could think for themselves. 

You may read the written and printed history of 
the Territory of Franklin and of the State at 
Franklin into which it grew, and you shall not 



RALPH ALLESTREE. 187 

once find the name of Ralph Allestree in any 
political position. But if you will go to the town 
of Washburn in the State of Franklin, you will find 
that he served in every local office which the 
records of that township name. He was ready to 
take care of the Pound, he was ready to serve as 
School Committee-man, he was a Trial Justice, he 
was a Captain of the light infantry, he was one of 
the trustees of the church, he was President of the 
Lyceum. And if you asked any one to-day who 
knows that region, whether Franklin is a Republi- 
can State or a Democratic State, he would say that 
it sends Republican Senators and Representatives 
to Congress, but that, as for its government, most 
people would be very apt to vote as Ralph Alles- 
tree had advised. 

For it is very certain in America as in the rest 
of the world that 

THE LEADERS LEAD. 



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